Child Item

Folder not loading images on mobile

When I load photos to a shared folder "anyone with link can view" the images are only viewable on desktop machine. Mobile will load the page, but there are empty/blank squares in place of all the images.

This is not only happening to me specific, but four other users and with shared folder links other than mine.

I do not have the dropbox ap installed on my phone but other users do and have same result - empty boxes where images should be.

Help?

Find more posts tagged with

View

OffTopic

Developer

Accepted answers

Frank_S

Hey all,

Thank you for your patience while we worked on getting this resolved. A fix for this has been released and shared links to folders should now show image and video thumbnails correctly, and let you interact with the thumbnails to view previews of the files.

This should work correctly for all users now, however if anyone is still seeing issues with shared links to folders on mobile web browsers, can you let us know in detail what behaviour you are seeing?

Thanks again to everyone that reported this behaviour and helped us to identify the source of the problem!

Best,

Frank

All comments

DonaLuiza

Hi,
I use my Dropbox account to share one folder called Dona Luiza with many people via the folder link. Today I received many complaints from the people without the app or account saying that the pics wouldn’t load for them, I tried logging out on my iphone and opening the link and it didn’t work as well. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

310EI

@DonaLuiza wrote:
Hi,
I use my Dropbox account to share one folder called Dona Luiza with many people via the folder link. Today I received many complaints from the people without the app or account saying that the pics wouldn’t load for them, I tried logging out on my iphone and opening the link and it didn’t work as well. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Hello...

If you need your participants to have "edit" access to the photos then yes, they need a Dropbox account and ample storage space in their account.

I recommend that you read this Help Center article regarding shared links (then choose which way you're accessing Dropbox for instructions). You can create a folder filled with you photos and just share-a-link to that folder. They can view everything without needing a Dropbox account. In addition, they cannot accidenatlly delete any files as can be done via a Collaborative Folder (unless you set view-only permissions).

I realize that it's hard to know for sure how sharing a link to folders/files will appear to your participants (especially when testing folders/files in your account vs another person's).

For that reason, I make it possible for you to test-drive how sharing a link is viewed by YOUR recipients... please feel free to explore my example folder below.

PLEASE NOTE: If you want to have the same experience as a non-Dropbox user then you should sign out of your Dropbox account or use a different browser.

> SHARING A DROPBOX SUB FOLDER LINK EXAMPLE:

The image below shows you the hierarchy of my example for sharing a LINK to a sub folder that only allows the recipient to view the ExampleSubFolder's contents.

Sharing a LINK to a Folder/File in my sub folder example does not give you access to the parent folder (zz.Example2) or its other sub folder (ExampleSubFolder2).

Depending upon how your folders/files are arranged within your Dropbox account:

You may have to create a new parent or sub folder.
Then copy/move your files to that folder in order to control what your recipients can view or download.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

I listed a few Help Center articles below for your convenience.

HELP CENTER ARTICLES:

Rich

DonaLuiza wrote:
Today I received many complaints from the people without the app or account saying that the pics wouldn’t load for them

If memory serves, this is a known issue that Dropbox was looking into. It started happening sometime in December.

Maple

Hi xoxoJen,

What is the account emails of the users who have this issue?

xoxoJen

Mine is cutsie@gmail.com

another person who can load on desktop does not have an account at all

two users I don't know well enough to ask for their email addresses

another is brianscribner33@gmail.com

And I am waiting for a reply for the other account.

The images are stored in the account brianscribner33@gmail.com who is marked as 'Owner' where I (cutsie@gmail.com) am an editor and who loaded the images.

xoxoJen

The other user I was waiting for reply from also does not have an account nor the mobile app, and only tested on mobile.
Another tidbit of information is that the other links I mentioned as not working, did work yesterday at some point and have stopped. (same empty boxes in place of images result)

Maple

Hi xoxoJen,

When you say mobile isn't loading the images, are you referring to the mobile app? Or the mobile website?

xoxoJen

Both! Appears to be specific to outside the app.
I don't have the app, whereas Brian does.

I've tried loading in Chrome, Firefox, and whatever facebook messenger uses and none work on my phone. On desktop, it loads fine in Firefox so I didn't test further there.

Edit to add: Brian just told me this:

I can see all the images on my phone within the app but when I copy the link and share to Facebook, I cant see the pics when I click on that link from facebook.

Maple

Hi xoxoJen,

Thanks for all the info! We will get back to you next week.

xoxoJen

Sure thing, thank you for the investigating!

yuzack

Guys~

IT happened to me too yesterday.

it seem Images in folder link wont't show on mobile but on table device(for non-dropbox user).

( still ,it did loading images but screen displays empty blanks )

not beacuse IE ,FireFox ,chrome or the the Link 's level of acess!

there is some smilair issue https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Mobile/Share-folder-not-loading-images/td-p/260214

so what's up ?

Aliciahomestage

Hi! Yesterday I was sharing links to some files containing photos via text message on my iphone, and everything was going fine. Everyone could open them, even those without the Dropbox app. Then suddenly something went wrong. No one can open them anymore, and I was even having trouble sending them, getting a failure to send message. I tried attaching a new link to the files, and still no one could open them. I tried creating a new file and trying to send the link to that to see if there was something wrong with my old files, and they can't open new ones either. I even deleted and re-launched my Dropbox app on myphone, and that didn't work.

I treid sending a link on my computer via email, and that didn't work. No one can open any links to files I send out...I am sendng them out with the "anyone with this link can view". My husband just gets blank sqaures when he tries to openthe ink, but a friend of my get a notice saying that this address no longer exists. What happened, and how do I fix this?

Mark

Can you send us some actual error messages?
Screenshots etc.?

zhp3nn

Not showing images when open Dropbox folder link on iPhone, and tap thumbnails not respond at all，The issue Start from yesterday

PaolaRB

The shared links on mobile phones ask to install the app to see them

Reignman

I am having this exact same problem. Can't view shared links that contains videos. Can't play them in Safari or Chrome on iPhone. The videos used to have thumbnails and play but now they are just white thumbnails and can't play. I have 5 other people say the same thing when the links are shared with them.

Darendeli

I am having same issue on my mobile devices as well. Pictures load when I request desktop version in google chrome. Mobile version won’t load it.

emilydolan751

I am having the same issue as decsribed above- can someone help?

Reignman

Is anybody from DropBox actively looking into this?? This is hindering our projects greatly. Thx.

Frank_S

Hi all,

My name is Frank and I’m a member of the Dropbox website specialist team.

First, I'd like to thank you all for reporting this problem with shared links. We're still investigating this at the moment, but it appears to be limited to shared links for folders; shared links directly to a file should still preview and function as expected. The issue also appears to be limited to web browsers on mobile devices. Desktop web browsers and the Dropbox mobile application are not experiencing this problem.

This has been reported to our engineering team who are investigating further, once I have more information on this I'll loop back here.

Thanks,

Frank

Aliciahomestage

Hi Mark superuser II. Are you took me so long to get this to you, but I emailed it to you a couple of days ago, and just now got the notice that that’s not the way to reply to you. Sorry, I am very new at all of this. Here is what my girlfriend gets when she tries to open my links from Dropbox. image2.jpeg. This is what my husband gets. image1.jpeg
I was on dropbox on my computer trying to figure this out, and when I try to attach a preference to my links, it tells me that I have to upgrade to a professional dropbox plan in order to attach a preference to a link. My preference being that anyone with the link can view it. That be a problem, that I have to upgrade my dropbox?
Thank you for trying to help me, as I really want to resolve this issue. I look forward to hearing from you very soon! Thanks!

Jay

Hey @Aliciahomestage, thought I'd help a little by merging your thread with this one, since we're looking into this matter.

We appreciate your patience!

kikio13

Has anyone found a solution? Images cant be seen on a mobile through the "shared link"

Alexjamo

Thanks for looking into it - just replying so I can follow the progress of this update
Thanks

trassuchine

Same problem here. Too many of my clients view images on their mobile phones without the dropbox app. Hopefully this can be fixed soon!!!

Aliciahomestage

Yes! I have the same issue! Most of my clients do not have a Dropbox app, and almost always view photos I send them on their cell phones. Really hoping that dropbox gets this resolved quickly! I also hope that when they do, they will notify all of us that we’re back up and running again!

muresanozana1

Hello, everybody!

I am photographer and I am using Dropbox to send the photos to my clients... so I send to them the link and they are saying that they cant see its. This problems exists for mobile and tablet devices.

Thank you!

Anastasios

It would be useful to give the community some extra info about your clients specs , i.e. what platform, device , os version are they using to view the pictures ... do they all have the same problem are they all using the same device or app ?

muresanozana1

Most users have Android mobile phones, but they are some with Iphone too. The shared folder link, once opened, doesn't load any previews for the photos nor a larger view if one clicks the gray squares that should hold the preview photo.

I have checked with the latest version of Chrome, Opera and Ghostery android browsers and they all behave the same (attached photo taken in Chrome on Android 7.1).

The link works as intended on Windows desktop browsers, but some of my clients do not own a desktop or a laptop pc

Vernon

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for your patience and cooperation on this issue.

As mentioned above by @Frank_S, it is something that affects web browsers on mobile devices and it is under thorough investigation from our engineering team.

Rest assured that we'll update you as soon as we have something new.

Thanks again. Take care!