I have a "ghost" folder which keeps re-appearing no matter how many times it is deleted. Any clues?
Hey, is the folder you are trying to delete empty or does it contain any files? Usually this happens because a piece of software on a computer that the folder is shared on is trying to access it, and is recreating it when someone else deletes it.If there is a file in there, looking at the 'previous versions' will tell you which machine the culprit is. If you don't have a file in there, add a test one, delete the folder again and when it reappears, you'll be able to solve the mystery! Deleting the folder on the rogue machine will fix it permanently.
Four days ago I finally got an email from Luke, member of the Dropbox application specialist team: “While some of our users were affected by the described bug I want to be clear, you were not affected. None of your data was no recently restored and there is nothing to worry about here.”
That's what I wanted to know. So the issue is resolved for me.
The link to contact Support isn't working. Many of my folders & files seem to have been deleted (not by me), then restored incompletely. The files that were restored appeared in unusual places in my account. I am still missing hundreds of files. Could you please extend the 30 day file recovery period so affected users such as myself have some time to figure out what files are still missing? My entire account is a mess because of this, and shared folders have caused even more problems.
Hello everyone,
Though rare, occasionally old or deleted files may reappear in your Dropbox. If this is the case, we can roll back your account to the point before this event occurred, or undo the individual addition events.
Otherwise, you can simply review those reappearing files and remove them from your Dropbox by navigating to the website and delete them.
If you have files on your Dropbox but you do not want them to appear on your Computer or some folder re appear on your device, you can review your Selective Sync settings.
Please review this Help Center article regarding missing, reappearing and corrupted files and in case none of the options help you, so that our support team can investigate more on this, please go to www.dropbox.com/support and submit a ticket request.
Thank you!
I moved a lot of files and folders around and now empty folders are popping up everywhere. I just spend hours trying to fix this. Tried all the suggestions in the comments before, nothing worked.
I’m on macOS 10.12, with latest Dropbox installed.
This problem is super annoying, I am thinking about switching my Dropbox Pro to an iCloud account, I just spend way too much time trying to fix this, which seems to be an existing error since 2015, so probably they won’t fix it quickly.
Edit:
I just noticed, that the folder showed up with a green check mark on my local Dropbox folder, but in the cloud it contains files, I guess this is the issue. So seems like I cannot trust the green check marks.
Hey @tsp,
It sounds like the syncing issues you are experiencing could be occuring bacause you may have symlinks in your Dropbox.
Please check this article out, scroll down to the Symlinks section and perfrorm the steps outlined in the article. If you keep experiencing issues, raise a ticket with our support team and they'll be more than happy to investigate and assist!
I have been undertaking he massive re-filing project and found the same issue. Flders would not stay deleted.
My solution was to go to the online folder and I found files not showing up on my computer. These contained illegal characters in their names - ?|: etc. I renamed each one - using simple names like Amos - and then could delete the folder. At renaming they all showed up in my synced file.
This built on some of the advice above - thank you everyone.
AmosMoses wrote: II found files not showing up on my computer. These contained illegal characters in their names - ?|: etc.
II found files not showing up on my computer. These contained illegal characters in their names - ?|: etc.
You can use the Bad Files Check to list any files in your account that could cause a syncing problem.
The bad-file-check revealed some .webloc-files with bad characters, e.g. «http-::makezine.com:.webloc».
There are hundreds of them in my account. Is there a way to rename these automatically somehow in Dropbox?
Also it would be very helpful if the Dropbox client could indicate problems like these with an icon and maybe some more information in the app. Right now if feels like I have absolutely no control over what Dropbox does and silently failing is definitely not a good thing to do.
I agree this is an issue with web files - I re-named a few but know I will have broken them. I went through everything on-line - just as it seemed more robust.
I do get a message now when trying to name a document with bad characters telling me it is not allowed. In Windows 10.
I have a folder that I delete but keeps coming back. I delete it and then try to permanently delete it. When I do that, I get an error that the files can't be permanently deleted because they are still active.
This is a huge issue because that folder keeps putting me over my limit. This folder was not meant to stay on my account for long. I just need it to go away.
If a file or folder returns when you delete it, it's because it was unable to be deleted on one of your connected devices.You delete a file on computer A. Dropbox is informed that it has been deleted and syncs that change to your account. Dropbox on your other devices is notified that the file has been deleted, so they also remove the file. On computer B, Dropbox is unable to remove that file for whatever reason (permission, locked, read-only, etc.). The result is that the file remains in place. Dropbox sees the file is still there, thinks it's been added and uploads it back to your account. All your other devices are notified of the "new" file and they sync it back down.So the problem is likely that the file or folder in question on one of your devices is unable to be deleted. Figure out which (use Previous Versions to see which computer is adding it back) and fix what is holding it there, and you should be able to delete it.
OMG I didn't think about that. You just made my life SO much easier. THANK YOU...THANK YOU!!
I tried both Travel R. and Janet H.4's solutions and they didn't work, or they worked in combination with signing in to my account online and delete the second folder manually, but be careful, I noticed online that the duplicate folder had a folder that the original folder didn't have, maybe there was some glitch or corruption going on there, so I selected that folder inside the duplicate folder I was trying to delete and moved over to the original folder I am trying to keep. After that I deleted the duplicate folder online and now Dropbox works fine! No more duplicate folder keep popping up. So idk if it was a combination of these three solution or what, maybe try my solution deleting the duplicate online (MAKE SURE folders are all same you don't want to lose anything), if that doesn't work try Travel R and Janet H.4's solutions. I think deleting old devices that Janet H.4 suggested should be done anyways.
Would be nice if one of the staff members could say something about this issue.
My main problem was dragging files from the internet browser to my dropbox – mostly .weblog or image-files which contains a character like «|» or «:».
What makes this really bad is that the Dropbox App does not complain. If I sync a folder which contains files with bad characters (which somehow were uploaded to Dropbox anyway) the folder on my Mac looks like it was empty, the green iocn symbolizes that it is synced correctly and that there are no files left to be synced. I deleted a lot of these empty folders from my Dropbox, so I deleted a lot of my files accidentally, because on my computer it showed up as empty, but in reality the folder was not empty.
DROPBOX TEAM: This is serious!!
If it where not for selective syncing and tag-support I would leave Dropbox because of this now.
For others – this seems to work:
- Go to Dropbox Bad Files Check
- Manually rename all reported files on the Dropbox website
- Check again if all errors have been corrected
This is a tedious process when you have thousands of bad files. So prepare for hours of manual renaming
I just noticed that even after I renamed all files listed in the bad-filename-checker on the Dropbox website the folders still show up empty in macOS Finder, but with a green mark that they are synced. The green synced-indicator-icons cannot be trusted anymore
I just tried to contact the support, when I clicked on «Send» a new page showed up where I can enter a question – I have no idea if my support ticket made it to the developers or not. Really bad usability here. I fear all the text I wrote is lost.
So disappointed in Dropbox!
Hi TSP.
Have you tried @DaveC2reply on the first page?
1.
Have you tried @DaveC2reply on the first page? He added a file to the folder to delete it. Someone else suggested that there may be some previous versions of a file in a folder stopping it being deleted.
I hope this helps you.
Same issue. Instead of creating a new thread, I'll ask here. Why is the deletion process so knuckle-headed in Dropbox? Folders aren't getting deleted, even after I go in and "delete permanently". They keep showing in the listing of files while Drobox shows the nag-message at the top about upgrading. Photos cannot be deleted either, there's no way to mass-delete them. What a stupid, stupid, stupid. I'd just like to delete everything and have a clean account in case someone needs to share a folder/file with me and is still using this archaic solution. Please help -- how should I delete mu files, folders, everything shared, all photos, etc. (This is a 1 second process in Google Drive.)
PS: I don't have dropbox on any device anymore. Only in browser.
https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/delete-files
Hey @pkiula, welcome to our forum!
I understand that you don’t have our Dropbox app installed on any computer, but this is currently the best way of mass-deleting content. I also understand your frustration with doing this online, and I am sending your comments over to our team for review.
Thanks
Hi @finsnlinit & @pkiula Would you mind taking a minute of your time to fill out a survey sharing your experience using our Dropbox Community? You can access the survey here: http://bit.ly/2lNKIxT
i have at least a hundred empty folders in my bookmarks and the Bookmarks whole folder is bouncing as tho it is unfolding then folding up again. when i try to delete a folder it actally adds one.,,,HELP!
[This thread is now closed by moderators due to inactivity. If you're experiencing a similar behavior, feel free to start a new discussion in the Ask a Question section here.]
thank you sou much - that helped! I hope this bug will be fixed soon - it is not very "Dropbox-like" to have such stupid bugs..
