Child Item

Binary files instad of folders

Hi everybody

I have a problem that onw of shared folders in dropbox became binary file when I`m sync it with my local storage. From MAC OS or Windows it`s possible to open that file, it works like label, but from Linux I`m couldn`t open it anyway. What shall I do?

Find more posts tagged with

Sync

Linux

Closed - Partially Delivered

Accepted answers

Lusil

Yes, if you'd like to completely disable the Smart Sync option, you'll have to turn the system extensions off.

Let me know if that does the trick, @zacanger!

All comments

Lusil

Hey there @newkis710, I'd be more than happy to help!

I'll just need a bit more info, such as:

Are you getting any errors when you try to open the file from your desktop app?
If so, could you send me a screenshot (without personal info)?
Are you trying to preview the files in a specific third party app by any chance?

Any further details would be very helpful. Thanks!

zacanger

I know this is old but I believe I'm having the same problem. I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 on my two main computers, and have no problems with synced files. My work computer is a Macbook, and I recently tried to sync some new directories with selective sync. Every file that came down, whether it was a text file, video, PDF, whatever, synced as binary blobs. For a test, I did this:

# Linux side
echo foo > ~/Dropbox/reading-now/test-file

# Mac side
file ~/Dropbox/reading-now/test-file
# test-file: data

If I try to cat the file, I get nothing out of it. This is the output of xxd:

00000000: 0000 0000                                ....

Files added from the Mac side come through on Linux correctly. Every file newly synced from the Linux side is similar to the above, adjusted for size. This doesn't seem to affect directories that have been synced for a long time. I believe the issue cropped up sometime in the last 6 to 9 months.

Lusil

Hey @zacanger, thanks for nudging us on this thread.

Just to make sure that I have a better visual of your concern, could you let me know the following pieces of information?

Are you running the current stable version of the desktop app on your Mac computer?
Could you send me screenshots (without any personal info) showing what the files look like when they get synced?

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

zacanger

I believe I'm on the stable version. My current version on both Mac and LInux is 100.3.406.

Here's another test I did with a text file that contains "Testing" and a 100x100 pixel black square image. When opening the text file on the mac side in textedit, it comes up as blank. Here are screnshots of the files in Finder, xxd on each of the files, and attempting to open the image in Preview and the text file in Vim. https://imgur.com/a/tGMwZWI

Something I just noticed is that this only occurs when a directory was freshly synced with Selective Sync. When I initially created the test directory and files and they synced, they showed up just fine. When I unsynced them, then synced them again, they got corrupted.

zacanger

Update: I should first mention that smart sync is _not_ enabled. It looks like files are being marked as "online only" and the only way to actually sync them is to open up Finder, find the smart sync settings in the context menu, and check "Local." Thanks to this thread for the answer: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-integrations/Dropbox-desktop-on-Mac-corrupts-files-downloading-from-web-is/td-p/371006

That solves the immediate problem of corrupt files, but I guess points to a bug with sync: I have smart sync turned off, so synced files should actually fully sync.

Lusil

Thanks for keeping me in the loop, @zacanger, and glad to hear that you were able to resolve your initial concern.

As for the files, you are right, when you sync a folder back from your selective sync settings and you have Smart Sync, it'll sync as online-only by default.

However, could you check if Smart Sync is indeed turned off for your account by going to your Dropbox system extension under your General tab online?

Let me know what you find, thanks!

zacanger

Thanks @Lusil. The system extention option is on, smart sync option is off. Do I need to have both of them off to fully disable this?

Lusil

Yes, if you'd like to completely disable the Smart Sync option, you'll have to turn the system extensions off.

Let me know if that does the trick, @zacanger!

zacanger

Thanks, that did the trick! That seems like somewhat unexpected behavior IMHO, a notice on the preferences view on the app might help clarify that.

Lusil

Glad to have helped, @zacanger, and thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us.

If anything else comes up in the future, just give us another nudge.

In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely day ahead!

stu5

It seems like this is still a problem in 2023.
After installing Dropbox in windows and later disabling the offline only mode, it seems all the files are actually executable only. This makes dropbox unusable for developers in windows using WSL. If this files are copies (e.g. cp ~/Dropbox/myfiles ~/myfiles ; ~/myfiles/myscript.sh ... all you get are binary files that do not contain your actual data. *sigh*