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Unspecified Error trying to open word, excel or PowerPoint files

Hello,

I have a fairly new laptop that was purchased in March that I use for all my personal and professional work. I started a new gig with a company in June and was given access to their Dropbox account. I've never had an issue accessing any file or making edits however the last two week I'm unable to open any MS office files created by any of the team members. I'm able to open documents and files created by me on my laptop. It's been very frustrating as I'm unable to troubleshoot the problem and need help urgently.

Many thanks!

Nicolette

Unspecified Error Dropbox.JPG

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Celeste

Hi @NGraham1!

I understand you are not able to open certain files via the Dropbox desktop app.

Is there any chance the files are currently Smart Synced to 'online-only'? If so, there will be a gray cloud icon by the files, and you can right-click on them and set their Smart Sync setting to 'Local'.

Alternatively, some applications have limits on the file paths they can access (for example, Excel has a limit of 218 total characters), and so shortening the entire name/path to the file may help.

You can check all of our sync icons and possible syncing issues here, too, for reference.

If the file is local and the file length is not the issue, can you copy the file to outside of the Dropbox folder and see if you can open it then? This will help determine if this is syncing issue or a file-specific one.

Let me know what you find, thanks!

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Celeste

Hi @NGraham1!

I understand you are not able to open certain files via the Dropbox desktop app.

Alternatively, some applications have limits on the file paths they can access (for example, Excel has a limit of 218 total characters), and so shortening the entire name/path to the file may help.

You can check all of our sync icons and possible syncing issues here, too, for reference.

Let me know what you find, thanks!

NGraham1

Hi Celeste2,

Thank you so much for your response. Turns out my files were set to sync online only that was causing the error to show up. I'm in the process of synching the folder that I work in everyday and see that I'm able to open most of the files now. I also agree there might be a few files where the file name can be shortened.

Thank you again for your help.

Nicolette

Celeste

Glad to have been able to help, @NGraham1!

In regards to the file names and paths you can find a full list of incompatibilities here, which may help you locate and avoid bad characters/symbols in the future.

Have a great rest of your week ahead!

aa88

@Celeste - So it this to mean that Smart Sync is not intended to be used to actually open Microsoft Office files? Will I have to select 'Local' for all files like this? I was trying to keep everything SmartSync'ed and so trying to understand if I have a problem (I am experiencing the same problem as the user above) or if this is just the way it is. No MS Work, PPT, or Excel docs will open. All generate the "Unspecified Error".

Thanks!

Lusil

Hi @aa88,

Welcome to the Dropbox Community!

Initially, please note that Smart Sync is a space-saving feature for your hard drive. So, by setting files to be online-only, only specific information is downloaded to your computer, such as the name, the location, and the date it was updated.

If you want to edit it, you'll have to make it local, so that the relevant information becomes available for you to make changes.

I hope this helps clarify a bit, but let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks!

Mike-B

@Lusil wrote:
If you want to edit it, you'll have to make it local, so that the relevant information becomes available for you to make changes.

Hi @Lusil

We have team members that have this same problem.

Can you please point me to the support documentation that covers this limitation? We were under the impression that Smart-sync'ed files would still be "openable". This seems like a severe limitation that I have somehow completely missed! Luckily our DB Business plan is still within the trial period. Looking forward to some clarafication.

Cheers.

Lusil

Hey @Mike-B, I'd be more than happy to help!

Online-only files save space on your hard drive by taking up as little storage as possible. In this case, only specific information is downloaded, such as the name and the path.

For a third party app on your computer to open a file, it needs to have all the relevant information available, which can be done by converting a file to local.

You can find more details about Smart Sync, and online-only files in this article.

Hope this helps to some extent!

rdinsf

OK, now I understand that if I have an MS Word file set to online only, just clicking on the file name won't work - have to set the file to local first.

Except....Wordperfect (only used by laywers I think these days) CAN BE OPENED while set to online only just by clicking on the file name in Windows Explorer.

Why the different behavior?

NicoleDominique28

I am getting the unspecified error. I did the make available offline and I am still unable to open any excel files from my dropbox app

Jay

Hi @NicoleDominique28, could you check to see that Excel files are configured to be opened with Excel on your machine, and not another app, in the settings?

NicoleDominique28

Sorry where in the settings would I find this?

Hannah

Hey @NicoleDominique28, I think this should help!