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Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac

Smart Sync causes my quick preview function (spacebar) to not function properly on my Mac. I can't preview thumbnails, or quick preview any videos or photos. Any ideas why this happens?

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Rich

Likely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.

When you set a file to Online Only, the only thing that's left of that file on your computer is the necessary information to make it appear in the folder. Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.

Remember, when you set a file to Online Only, the file is removed from the computer leaving behind only a marker file. In order to access that file, whether it be to open and edit it or simply preview it, the file needs to be on the computer (Smart Sync doesn't allow you to open files directly from the Dropbox servers). When you open a file, it's synced back to your local drive and then opened as normal. When you're done with the file, if you want it to be online-only again, you need to mark it as such.

All comments

Rich

Likely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.

Andrew-RFLB

No, unfortunately it turns off Quick Preview (or Quicklook) for all of my files, even local, until I restart my Mac. And if I happen to try to preview an online-only file, it causes it to malfunction again. I can basically just avoid hitting spacebar with online-only files, but it is annoying if I want to use it to see those files' sizes.

Amy P.5

@Rich wrote:
Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.

Not entirely true. In both List and Cover Flow views in the Finder, I am able to see previews of some Online-Only images, but only sporadically. Sometimes a preview will appear, then I'll scroll some more and it will disappear, then I scroll back and it reappears.

Also, all of these previews come up as a square cropped thumbnail, not a preview of the entire image with correct aspect ratio.

In my case I am also able to see these same images (whenever they decide to appear) in Quick Look. I am not sure if the previews come up on PSD or other file types, but I do notice it with JPGs.

I am on OSX El Capitan (10.11.6).

Tolga

I have the exact same problem especially for my camera uploads folder. Some random images keep their thumbnails while other can't. Is this something Dropbox can fix ?

When I upgraded my account to Dropbox professional, I was hoping I could at least see the thumbnails in the smart synced folders and download images as necessary. But not being able to at leas preview a low quality thumbnail defeats the whole purpose for me.

dallassterling

Same here. This is crippling my computer and making it unusable without downloading images to online. It appears to be causing a bug with the Finder in general.

Lauri I.

Our team has been using the Smart Sync and so far it has worked really well!

However we noticed that after starting using Smart Sync on High Sierra, all of us have the issue that Finder stops showing the preview image when hitting space bar on files. You need to relaunch the Finder all the time to get it back to working.

We suspect that it's somehow related to dropbox smart sync, because many time I notice this happening is when I'm browsing files on a dropbox folder that have all or some of the images on "online only" mode.

Anyone else experiencing the same issues? Any solutions out there?

Sanchez

Hi @Lauri I.,

Did you update existing Macs to High Sierra? If so, and if our app was already installed prior to the update, then I suggest that you uninstall our app, restart your system, and then re-install. Current version 44.4.58, and you can get it here.

I hope this helps. Let me know.

Have a great weekend

annienar

I'm having the same issue, is there going to be a fix for this? I was excited to try smart sync but I cannot use it like this, one of the most loved features OSX has is the quick preview of files.

Minato

Helloes to all here!

As this seems fairly irregular and it requires some investigation, can I ask anyone with this issue to contact any of our Support channels,

so we can investigate the issue more thoroughly and with all our tools (that aren't available from this platform)?

Thank you in advance!

annienar

I did ask via Twitter about this issue, specifically how to remove the smart sync because it was messing the preview of all my files.

Minato

Hey @annienar,

Has your issue been resolved by our colleagues on the twitter-verse?

If you require additional assistance, let me know!

annienar

@minato well I had to remove it completely for everything to work again, a shame I'm really interested in the service but I value the quickpreview OSX has more =/

Minato

I'm sorry to hear that but it's understanable.

Unfortunately, previewing files that don't exist physically on the computer, can't be previewed,

as Smart Sync creates a shadow placehorder.

Don't hesitate to contact us for any other issues or suggestions you might have!

annienar

That was not the issue, I couldn't preview files that were actually saved locally, and it also messed files outside of my dropbox folder in my computer (for example those in my desktop or my documents that weren't synced to dropbox) Of course I understand you can't preview files that' don't exist, it messed ALL my files.

Norah

Hey @annienar, thanks for the quick response!

You can raise a ticket by going here in order for our team to investigate with all of our tools as they are not available through this platform.

Once you send us a ticket, please include the ID and I will make sure that a colleague gets on it as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance for your reply!

Lauri I.

Hey Sanchez,

Does not seem to matter is it updated or a clean install. Most of the Macs in our team are updated to high sierra but few are clean installed. I just clean installed the High Sierra few days ago and installed the latest dropbox client but the same thing happens.

It happens every time when you browse preview images in finder Online Only folders, it shows few preview images and then stops showing and you have to force restart the finder to get it working again.

Let me know if you think of anything to try.

Lauri I.

I've been writing about the same issue in another post and will also write a ticket.

My observations about the problem:

- Occurs when opening finder preview images (spacebar) in "Online only" folder. It show's previews for few files but after that it stops showing them and will not show any preview files even in local files outside dropbox

- Only fix is to Force quit Finder when this happens

- Everyone in our work team who use High Sierra has this problem (we all use smart sync)

- Did not happen before High Sierra

- Still happens after clean High Sierra install / installing latest dropbox client

Hope it will get fixed soon!

Norah

Hi @Lauri I., welcome to Dropbox Community!

As I would like to help you further, I followed up via email in order to continue troubleshooting with all our tools available.

Looking forward to hear from you!

Sanchez

Hey @Lauri I.,

Thanks for getting back to me. I’d like to put you in touch with our support team for further troubleshooting. I can have an agent reach out to you at the email address associated with your forum profile, or you can write in here https://www.dropbox.com/support too.

Cheers!

Laurits

Please send the email with a guide to troubleshooting to me aswell. We have the same problem in our office.

Norah

Hi @Laurits, welcome to Dropbox Community!

I followed up via email for you and we can continue troubleshooting there with all our tools available.

Thanks in advance for your reply!

ewest

Just wondering if there's any update or fix to this problem? - I'm having the same issues as the OP. I would rather not have to delete and re-install the app, as I have many 100's of MB of data that I would then, presumably, need to re-sync?

Sanchez

Hey @ewest, welcome to our community!

I don’t have any update for you, unfortunately. We haven’t heard back from the original poster, so I have no idea how that worked out.

I suggest that you get in touch with our support team about this. I can have an agent reach out to you at the email address associated with your forum profile, or you can submit a request here.

If you want to give the reinstall a try, know that you won’t need to re-sync all your data. When you uninstall or delete our app, your local Dropbox folder is left in tact. When you install again, our app will recognize that folder, and only re-index your files! If you have moved your local Dropbox folder to a non-default location, then you can tell our app where that location is, by choosing the Advanced Options during the installation process. Again, it will just need to re-index.

Here’s the reinstall info for MacOS:

Make sure you save and quit ALL programs that access files in your Dropbox folder. Then:

Download the latest offline installer of our app, 49.4.68. The offline version is the complete installation package.
Stop Dropbox (If needed):

Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen
Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select 'Quit Dropbox'

Delete the Dropbox application from the Applications folder. You may need to provide your computer password in order to perform this action.
Reinstall the Dropbox desktop application

Open the Dropbox .dmg file and double click the Dropbox icon.

Let me know how this goes.

Cheers!

Lauri I.

Hey,

From the emaiI support I only got instructions how to take screenshots on mac and asked to describe the problem, which I have already done here.

Ewest: Re-installing of the dropbox client does not help so I personally do not recommend wasting time on that.

Sanchez

Hey again, @Lauri I.,

I’ve asked our agent to reach back out to you about this. They’ll be in touch as soon as possible.

Thanks!

Norah

Hey @Lauri I., I have reached out to you once more! :upside_down:

I understand the procedure can be frustrating,however, in order to have a better understanding on why you are experiencing this issue I will need you to provide me with all the details requested.

Thank you for your time and cooperation!

ewest

Hi Sanchez.

I did as you prescribed. However, I did not get any advanced options during install - but my non-default folder location remained intact, somehow.

That said, I still have the same problem with the finder image previews not working after a while.

Just to re-iterate, by deleting ~library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist the preview will work for a short while. After navigating through several files over the course of a few minutes, the preview becomes broken again.

Norah

Hey @ewest, thanks for taking the time to write back in!

As you mention trying all the steps provided by @Sanchez, I followed up via email in order to continue troubleshooting with all our tools available.

Looking forward to hear from you!

CNowell

Has this issue actually been fixed or are Dropbox Support emailing individuals to troubleshoot?

It's a little misleading to consider this problem "solved" when the solve was support saying they'd go the email route, and not follow up with any information about what the fix was.

This is a big problem for myself and many of the art directors at the business I work at. I'm currently runnig OSX 10.13.4, and I hardly consider force quitting Finder to be a solve. Anyone know what the conflict seems to be?

Norah

Hi @CNowell, welcome to Dropbox Community!

As each case is unique, some more information and a screenshot of the discrepancy (omitting any personal information) would be very helpful in order to have a better image of what is going on.

Looking forward to your reply!