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?
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.
I've just resigned myself to resetting QuickLook through Terminal several times per working session.
If you relaunch your finder from your desktop it seems to fix it (for the time being).
This has only been happening to me since I upgraded to DP Pro. Something isn't right. I has to be a bug on the DB side. Hopefully they can get this resolved, I definitley don't want to relaunch my finder every hour or so.
Thanks for the intel thus far.
I'm having the exact same problems described. Any solutions yet???
My workaround has been relaunching Finder multiple times a day. Very annoying!
I opened a support ticket. They said to turn off Dropbox and see if it was still happening, because that would prove it wasn't Dropbox. I turned it off during a time when it was acting up and the problem continued. I'm not convinced that rules out Dropbox, but Support apparently is, and maybe they're right. I can't find any trace of a single non-Dropbox using Mac user who has to use the "qlmanage -r" command in terminal after about every 10 viewings of an image, but that's my life now. And no one is interested in helping.
It is Dropbox, after I had issues with this, I had to unsync everything I had on my computer from dropbox, disable the smart sync and use dropbox the old way, and I didn't have the issue anymore, the problem is with the Smart Sync feature, it does something in OSX that after a while messes up the quick preview feature for everything on the computer, disregarding if it's a dropbox file, synced or not or a local file.
This is a issue with dropbox and I'm really dissapointed by the way this has been handled, specially since this is a feature for enterprise accounts. I thought they would pay more attention to this issues and not dismiss them just like they have been doing in this thread.
@Jane This is what we've been discussing all along with @Rod2's post details, and there's a significant amount of users in this thread also having this same issue.
What about the rest of us?
PLEASE, whatever you do, don't consider the issue "resolved" with just Rod2. AT LEAST inform the rest of us what's going on in here, or when we can expect a fix, if any.
@Rod2, at the risk of sounding pessimistic, don't be surprised if they say it's OSX's problem (...how can they even justifify this explanation? Dropbox makes software for Apple, not the other way around). On the flipside, I hope your customer service experience is better than mine!
Pardon any abrasiveness in this post, but the level of blame shifting or support quality in this thread is starting to wear thin on me.
What does "completely closed" mean? As Support instructed, I clicked the DropBox icon, clicked the gear, clicked "Quit Dropbox." And yet, I could still access files which were stored on DropBox only via SmartSync. If I completely closed out of DropBox, shouldn't I be unable to see those files?
So, even though I only have those filed stored online, not locally, I can still access them locally with DropBox turned off? I'm use SmartSync so I don't have to keep so many files on my limited hard drive. It doesn't make sense that I'd be able to access them if DropBox was truly deactivated. Plus, I'm not talking about the Dropbox folder. I'm talking about other folders that have SmartSync set to store the files online only. You're saying I should be able to see them without Dropbox being active on my computer?
I am having the same issue as the above posters. I just installed Dropbox the other day (after upgrading to High Sierra). Now, none of my files can be previewed in Finder. When I relaunch Finder, previews will show again for a few minutes, but then the same issue happens again and I can't preview files anymore. I have tried turning off Smart Sync and online-only settings, but it hasn't worked. How do I turn off the online-only setting so that all of my files can be downloaded and previewed in Finder?
I am having this same issue. Previews sporadically working on High Sierra. Having to Force close Finder just to get it working for a few moments. This absolutely is a bug that needs to be fixed. They will of course not admit that.
So far my Dropbox customer service experience has been terrible. It took them 7 days to allow me to upgrade my plus account to pro. I am now experiencing these issues and I will not hold my breath about Dropbox caring in the least bit. I think each person simply has to decide if they can live with this arrangement.
#1. Go to your Account tab online.
#2. Scroll to Dropbox system extension & toggle this setting to off.
Anyone tried is the same problem also in the latest Mojave betas?
Mojave is coming out today and as always I'm really afraid of upgrading because of dropbox and how well it will work with the new OS.
Just as I feared, the problem is actually much worse in Mojave. We did a clean install of Mojave for two new Macbook Pro's and the quick preview stopped working completely after using dropbox for a while.
The only new thing is that force quitting finder no longer fixes the issue temporarily. Rebooting does not fix it either. Great stuff!
DO NOT UPDATE TO MOJAVE YET IF YOU WANT TO USE QUICK PREVIEW IN FINDER
Has anyone here considered switching to Box.com, or already using Box and not having any of these issues? I use to be on Box through my previous job and never had issues like this. Im nearing desperate to move on from this issue as I have to look through tons of photos a day and this is really hindering my productivity.
@Lauri I. God, that sucks. Sorry for all of the frustration you've probably encountered, but thank you for passing the info along.
@LeahlcMy employer is actually in process of testing out Box— apparently it doesn't suffer from the same syncing issues, but only time will tell. Fingers crossed!
In the meantime, I'm cancelling my (personal) subscription later today. It's just not worth the headache anymore, especially with customer service putting the blame on the user and/or claiming that it's "The OS's fault" (guys, guess what, you're supposed to update your software as the OS gets updated) — Imagine the lovely responses we're going to get when our information is compromised or when data is lost (which will inevitably will happen at some point).At this point, Dropbox isn't exactly the type of company I'm cool with safekeeping all of my work docs— especially if they can't be bothered to fix a problem as fundamental to most of our workflows as this.
Good luck out there everyone.
@CNowell, I'd love to hear how Box works out for you. I've found the only thing that works is syncing everything locally, which defeats the purpose of SmartSync for me (smaller hard drive, more files stored in cloud). So I'm currently archiving things to Dropbox but not using SmartSync the way I like, which means I can drop my plan down a notch and save a bunch of money. But if Box can actually do it right, their $15 plan looks terrific to me - and less than I'm paying for DropBox.
So has the issue been resolved at all? I had issue on High Sierra and now also on Mojave.
It's NOT Solved! I cannot use Preview anymore at all (imac sierra). Neither local nor cloudbased. Affects Even all other folders outside dropbbox. Do something!
This has been an ongoing issue for quite some time. Dropbox has no interest in fixing this...
As a paying Dropbox Business customer (2 business accounts) this doesn't sounds like good business. This is a major usability issue.
Yeah our team pays $1800 a year for busienss dropbox. we always worked locally on external hardrives as we have 800Gb of data and we all work on laptop with less space. we just used selective sync and everything was local and it was great. Someone had the idea of doing smart sync and only having what you are workign on local and everyting else online only so we could ditch th eexternals. Sounded great but as a designer I hit spacebar to activate previews quicklook feature a gazillion times a day. the moment we swapped to smart sync two things broke:1: you coudl no longer unmount or eject the external hardrive. it would freeze finder into a catastofic failer EVERYTIME you tired. thats a huge probloem of course. I know dropbox doesnt want you working on externals but its the only option. without smart sync. 2: the mement we turned on smart sync. Like veryone else in this thread. the quick look function of prievew stopped working when viewing files within your dropbox folder. it worked anywhwere else on the hardrive, but if you would be in th edropbox folder then it would glitch out and stop showing the icon thumbnail, and the larger preview. This happens whether the file is online only or Local... it doesnt matter. symart sync and preview DONT get along at all. the horrible thing is... after it glithces the problem persists. it basicly stalls out the cache for priview or something. you cna close dropbox and then right on yoru desctip all filetypes loose there thumnail in the file icon itself as well as the ability to preview the content. The only fixes are restarting preview in a way that replaces the cache directory. Either computer restart, force quiting finder itself, or as mentioned previously manually deleting the cache databasee. then everyting goes back to normal as long as you are on yoru computer ANYWHERE other then the dropbox folder. as soon as you go in you have moments of brilliance fallowed by thumbnail loss entirely once again. the time it takes to crash varies from a few second to a few miutes. but it ALWAYS happens.This has to be fixed... my biggest gripe is that it isnt of course.. when you are dealing with 100ks of thousands of files you have to be able to preview what they content is of course. what is this 1990? Fix yoru [profanity removed by moderation] and quit blaming apple OS. you made smart sync. fix it. DONT TELL ME "you can't preview the online only files, becuase they are just a shadow placeholder, with folder structure and file name, nothing more." this ISNT TRUE, as after you restart finder and get preview working again for a moment... online only files can be previewed. they get a file thumbmnail icon and you can see it larger and quicklook the file. So dont feed us a line of tech [profanity removed by moderation] that there isnt an embedded thumbnail in the shadow file. if ther wasnt you woudl never get a preview. but we do... Smart sync is GARBAGE in the modern era if you cant view the files it is managing without fully opening them or going online to dropbox.com... NOBODY goes to yoru web interface when you can work locally in your computers OS. nobody.
I have the same issue. High Sierra. My coworker has the same computer but in Mojave and has the exact same problem. Relaunching the Finder works, for a little while, then back to not being able to preview neither what I have in my computer or what's online.
I know nobody cares but hey maybe if enough of us comment somebody will.
Hello Andrew, did you find a solution to your problem? I am still having the same problem as you.
