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Dropbox is re-syncing my files again?

Viqhaas M.

Why on earth is this happening ?!? its resyncing everything again nothing has been changed why ?

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DOsinga

I don't recall any changes to the OS etc. It didn't say re-indexing, it said updating and the number of files kept increasing. After one or two days it was still going like crazy.

I found online somewhere that I should delete filecache.dbx. I did that, restarted dropbox. Now it did re-index all files, but this only took a couple of hours. I've not had a problem since.

I think it would be nice if Dropbox would pay attention to this sort of thing in a more timely fashion for paying customers.

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Jane

Hey there (@Marco22) & (@Rosemary U.), while there could have been a few things coming into play in your setup, I’d like to follow-up on how this has manifested itself on your end. If you don’t mind me asking, have you monitored the Dropbox performance on your Activity Monitor/ Task Manager perchance? What have you found there?

From there, it would be worth mentioning that we recommend avoiding the use of Symlinks &/ or storing a large number of files in your Dropbox folder as a rule of thumb, since it can affect your syncing speed. I’m also wondering whether the amount of files you’ve currently synced on your device is surpassing the recommended 300,000 files soft limit. Have you utilized Selective sync at all Marco?

Please include as much info as possible on this discussion here & I’ll make sure to check back with you & send you the best next steps to tackle this behavior. Thanks for posting us on the Dropbox Community & enjoy the rest of your day until we talk again!

Marco22

Hi Jane, thanks -

In activity monitor, Dropbox has been at >100% for the past 24h. I still have 185k files to sync.

I do have a lot of files, the total number at the moment is 332,631 items. I will try to reduce their number. However, looking at this forum thread, the issue seems to be unrealted to the number of files.... It'll just take more time to reindex the entire Dropbox folder.

Selective sync is selected on a few other computers, but not on this one. However, the same issue is present on other Mac, where I sync only a few folders. There, when the problem occurs, the reindexing is simply faster.

My opinion is that this issue affects most people with multiple syncs to different PCs (like me), but most people don't notice as they don't have so many files, so the re-indexing is quick.

One hint here: It might not be a coincidence that this happened after I uninstalled Dropbox, linked to the same account, on another Windows 10 Pro PC. In that PC, I only selectively synced one folder, which cointained only a couple of files (but very large ones, >20 GB). Once files were all synced (green) on this Windows machine, I uninstalled the app from Windows (so unlinked that account), and then the resync started on the other Mac.

I believe you should know by know what's causing this issue, given that this post is 4 years old?

I'm not using SymLinks within Dropbox, but I'm using SymLinks that point to Dropbox folders, I'm quite sure this cannot be an issue, as Dropbox doesn't have any idea about external symlinks pointing to one of its folders.

Thanks, Marco

Jane

Thanks for looping back to me with on our discussion here (@Marco22)!

For starters, it would be worth noting that the re-syncing description isn’t diagnosing the root cause of this behavior Marco. On the contrary, it’s been masking various underlying issues under the syncing umbrella that should be best treated separately. In other words, despite the thread being active for 4 years, this doesn’t reflect the progress made on the topic but rather shows us that there are a few things coming into play when your files are constantly syncing (& this also means that there isn’t a single treatment to amend that).

Now, I’d like follow-up a bit closer on your report, as I have a clearer picture of what this looks like on your end; thanks a lot for describing matters to me in such detail.

I do have a lot of files, the total number at the moment is 332,631 items. I will try to reduce their number.

Please do Marco, as this should also alleviate the high memory usage on your Activity Monitor. If this persists after you do, then we’ll probably need to have a closer look on your setup on our system. Do keep me updated on how you get on applying Selective Sync here & I’ll try to touch base with you asap.

I'm not using SymLinks within Dropbox, but I'm using SymLinks that point to Dropbox folders, I'm quite sure this cannot be an issue, as Dropbox doesn't have any idea about external symlinks pointing to one of its folders.

This could affect the overall resource management (& consequently the performance) on your device however if the link is outside Dropbox, then it shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks again for keeping in touch on this converstion & I'll be awaiting to see whether there's any improvement after removing some content locally!

fuzzyteq

I had to delete my hardrive and use a timemachine backup, but when it was back up and running I had to sign back into dropbox and now it has been syncing for about 12 hours with 156k files to go. I can't find a filecache.dbx file on my iMac.

Jane

Hey there (@fuzzyteq), that’s a mere guess on my end, however, can you confirm that you’re not using any Symlinks or referenced files on the device where you’re experiencing this issue?

From there, just as a quick check, could you have a look on your menu bar at the top of your Mac for the Dropbox icon? If you hover your mouse on it, it should display the Dropbox syncing status. What does the message there read for you? Have you noticed any progress since the last time you wrote us here by any chance? I’d appreciate a screenshot (omitting personal info), so as to better determine what's happening; please include it in your next message if possible.

Any detail you could include on this discussion would be very helpful in determining the best next steps & thanks a lot for taking the time to clarify matters for me!

waira

Hi Jane (@jane), Im new to dropbox, we are just trying free Dropbox for our business for now (also trying Google Drive) to see what works.

We running MYOB (accounting software) on 3 computers and have the MYOB files saved on our Dropbox local files on each computer and sync through Dropbox. Note that MYOB autosaves constantly.

We always make sure there is only one user working on MYOB at any given time

The problem we are having is that even though there is only one single computer on MYOB, we are always getting MULTIPLE CONFLICTED COPIES of the file.

I checked this article: https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/share/conflicted-copy

and all I can think of is that because MYOB constantly saves, then conflicted copies will always arise. However, it isn't practical for us to constantly check all multiple conflicting copies vs. the original to see which one is more recent.

I have spoken to colleagues running the same version of MYOB and using the same method of syncing across Dropbox but none of them is experiencing this issue.

Have you got any idea as to how I could correct this issue?

Best regards

Juan

Fiona

Hello Juan!

Welcome to our Community!

Let us know the steps you took to connect this third party app with Dropbox and have it syncing automatically. Symlinks maybe? :thinking:

Here is a helpful thread for Symbolic links/Symlinks :dart:: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Syncing-when-using-symbolic-links/td-p/312221

Since the duplication is not happening for anyone else using this app with Dropbox, please check if by any chance you are on a Beta version of the Dropbox application(**.3.***). If you are, you will need to downgrade to stable, for the experience to be as expected.

Steps 1: Visit your account settings online (here) and turn off "Early releases".

Step 2: Upgrade to the latest stable. You can find all Stable and Beta versions here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Desktop-client-builds/bd-p/101003016

One last question. Are the files duplicating, files that are syncing from MYOB only or you have duplicates in general? and if so, please let me know what type of files you are facing this issue with. (Word, Excel, pdf.)

As @Jane explained, each case is different and we will do our best to address and investigate all of your reports!

Thanks for the additional info @waira.

nuss

Is there a solution? Dropbox is resynching for days, and therefore is consuming a lot of resources.

I also find the limitation of 300,000 files problematic. I am paying for 2TB a year. Even if ther size of each of my files is 4MB, which is not the case, then 2TB storage is supposed to handle 500,000 files.

Am I paying Dropbox for service that it cannot provide?

Alipio

Five years on and it is now happening to me. My MacOS has asked me about three times in the last two weeks for my acceptance because of "Need to change permissions for Dropbox folder". And then it resyncs apparently all files. Why is that? I only have one device currently. Why does it need to change permissions? Why so often?

MikeMMS

We are having the same issue across different PCs and Macs. Dropbox Business account. We use smart sync but we are still over 300k files.

We have not been able to identify why yet, but on occasion the desktop app decides to re-sync all file and it takes upwards of 2 days with our significant amount of data. We do believe there is a correlation between deleting or moving folders, but have not yet confirmed. We have verified that no symlinks exist:

dir /AL /S C:\ | find "SYMLINK"

So the big question is, shouldn't the index identify modified files and prevent the desktop app from re-syncing everything?

Any other suggestions that would prevent the re-sync of all files would be appreciated OR if you know what specifically triggers the re-sync of all files, please let us know and we will try to avoid that scenario.

4pixels

It's a few years ago now, but I found the issue on Mac was using the Maintenance scripts in CleanMyMac. Not an issue now.

lidag

Same problem with resyncing all my files (obviously this has not been sorted out (Dec. 2020!). And no, with South Africa's pathetic IT infrastructure it takes DAYS to resync. I am not impressed.

outsidetheboxtci

How do you delete the filecache.dbx file? I searched my computer but didn't find it. I have a Windows 10 Pro

Walter

Sorry to be jumping in here, but have you tried the steps outlined here on your computer @outsidetheboxtci?

robbiemallett

Yes my computer has begun doing this with every reboot. Dropbox seems to be totally useless for now.

Absolutely infurating and has totally screwed up my work. I'm committed to Dropbox so can't easily leave the ecosystem, but wish I'd never joined.

77002

After asking for and getting my system password (MacOS Monterey) Dropbox has been constantly "updating" files for about 24 hours. Screen Shot 2023-10-06 at 11.07.55 AM.png

What is going on here? Should I be concerned?

Hannah

Hey @77002, thanks for joining our Community.

What was the message that you got before this happened?

Were you perhaps asked to update the application to the new Dropbox for macOS version?

77002

Hi, @hannah. I didn't pay much attention, because I trust my OS and Dropbox not to steer me wrong, but I don't *think* it was to update the app.

77002

It does look like the app updated yesterday. Can you please explain this update-everything behavior? I haven't seen this from a software update, at least in a long time.

Might Dropbox in the future give some heads-up about this, so that users are not getting into a length system-dragging file update when they have other more important things to do?

77002

ALSO How did this unsolved problem get moved to a discussion marked "solved"?

Nancy

Hey @77002, sorry for jumping in.

Just a clarification here; do you mean that your Dropbox app was updated to the latest app version when this started? Did you have any other OS updates perhaps?

77002

Yes, updated to latest dropbox app version—184.4.6543.

No, no other OS updates contemporaneous.

77002

For almost 36 hours, Dropbox has been slowing my desktop computer to near uselessness. The number of files being "updated" (whatever that means—the company seems to think we're not entitled to know) fluctuates with no apparent pattern.

Let's talk alternatives to Dropbox.

Screen Shot 2023-10-06 at 11.04.50 PM.png

Megan

Hi @77002, is your Dropbox folder located in ~/Library/CloudStorage?