Child Item

Background activity iOS from the mobile app.

Hi,

Just notice that Dropbox keeps active in the background on iOS, even if i disable it in the settings from iOS. After some testing I found the problem, the integration with the files app causes this problem. If I disable Dropbox within the files app there is no longer background activity from Dropbox. Hope this can be fixed soon because it drains my battery.

Find more posts tagged with

Setting Up the Apps

Mobile

Spam

Comments

Heartsonfire

Background App Refresh is OFF, Locations is OFF in files app, Upload Photos is OFF but Dropbox continues to run Background Activity ALL DAY & DRAINS MY BATTERY!!! Why is this continuing to happen???? And why is there NO way to actually contact support??? What great customer service! SMFH!! I’m soooo frickin frustrated and about to delete the app! HELP PLEASE!!!!

CJAWright

Reading this thread, it’s mental! I cannot get over how nobody from Dropbox has fixed this! Using your service for years now. I paid £80 for a new battery in my iPhone today. And the guy at the Genius Bar said it’s a Dropbox software issue. Low and behold, 6 months into it, still not resolved. Seriously! It doesn’t need to run in the background! Most other apps “allow only when using this app” 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

Cmon, please reach out with a solution!!! Not just one person with this issue. And probably several more without even realising!!!!

TheMG

Same issue! I just looked in the Battery tab under settings... changed over from "Last 24 Hours" to "Last 10 Days"... looked down at Dropbox... 97 HOURS 5 minutes of BACKGROUND usage!!! I really BARELY use DropBox, so this isn't because I'm a heavy user and the phone is staying in sync all the time... To be fair, LinkedIn also had a rediculous amount of usage too, so I suspect it may have something to do with an Apple update. But the fact that Dropbox isn't even acknowledgeing the problem (seems to be a common theme) is troubling. (I too have already verified that the "background app refresh" permission was turned off for Dropbox.

khcole

Thanks, but how do you disable it under iOS14? I'm not seeing an option to toggle it on/off like in prior iOS releases or an edit button. It's hogging my battery (147 hours over 10 days; 15 hours over the last 24 hours). Love to remove from Files App.

AaronPowellDesign

Hi,

I would have thought that my many previous comments would've suggested that I am only referring to the only possible option available, which is of course "Background Update Refresh", at least you can feel sure that I am referring to what you thought it might be (answering the exact same questions many times in earlier comments has caused my patience to wane by the way)...

I took a long time to respond because I was convinced for a while that as long as the Dropbox App is closed when using the multi task screen, then that would stop this problem , but noo. This morning my iPad was on 5%, and the Dropbox App wasn't even open, yet, it says it ran in the background for nearly 8 HOURS!!! It feels like Dropbox are conspiring with Apple to kill off older devices, since when the battery goes bad, then the whole device becomes useless?

I'm running Dropbox 202.3 and iPadOS 13.6.1.

Please do NOT assume updating will somehow solve this (it only says new features for the latest app update anyway), I've already updated both MANY times during the time of having this problem, and unless dropbox get their act together, (and stop focusing on new features all the time and fix the problems), then MAYBE the problem will get fixed.

AaronPowellDesign

Here's an image that accompanies my comment reply that I just sent a moment ago..

jr866gooner

@khcole wrote:
Thanks, but how do you disable it under iOS14? I'm not seeing an option to toggle it on/off like in prior iOS releases or an edit button. It's hogging my battery (147 hours over 10 days; 15 hours over the last 24 hours). Love to remove from Files App.

Go into the Files app and where it is listed as a location, choose the ellipsis top right and select edit and simply disable dropbox.

jr866gooner

To clarify I noticed this exact same behaviour and I am glad I am not alone.

I didnt grab a screen shot unfortunately but instead removed the app entirely until I found this thread and have simply ensured the files app is not listing dropbox as connected. Not ideal but I shall see if this improves my overnight battery drain which was as much as 15 to 20% overnight!

If this files settings change makes no difference then it will certainly force my hand to move my data out of Dropbox for good.

khcole

Thank you. I don't know how I missed that. For me, this is strike number 2 for DropBox. The first is their complete refusal to make DB work with the favorites on the Files App. That makes using my iPad extremely cumbersome. The thread trying to get that fixed is going on 2+ years now, with no resolution. I was going to migrate to OneDrive, as we use Office365 for our company. However, I was procrastinating. I will be migrating our company over this weekend and cancel DB. Too bad. Great service, but they've forgotten to pay attention to their customers...always a fatal mistake when there is competition.

TheMG

Unfortunately, this went on for about 2-3 weeks and even after disabling it, my battery life is definitely MUCH better, but it FRIED my battery. My battery now only lasts about half the day when it used to last the entire day.

Maybe it's time to get a class action lawsuit started? (Especially since Dropbox won't even respond. Or are they not responding because they know this is about to turn into a lawsuit?)

khcole

I'm not seeing an issue with LinkedIn. My last 10 days was just 1h 22m.

batterydrain

still not resolved.. I guess its time to uninstall dropbox and switch to another solution.

Lusil

Hi everyone, thanks for keeping us in the loop and for all your reports on this.

If you haven't already, please have a look at Daphne's post, here.

In any case, you can always contact our Support team to have a more in-depth look, since they're able to better assist you using the internal tools that they have.

Once you do that, you can let us know the ticket ID (eg. #1234567) associated so that we can pass your comments from here along.

If you have any trouble creating a ticket, just give us a nudge on this thread, and we'll be more than happy to send one to you.

Thanks again!

TheMG

Her reply acknowledges it being a known issue in AUGUST (August 28th) and we are now nearly halfway through November. So we have had no updates or resolution nearly two and a half months later, on a bug that is physically destroying hardware.

The fix also only benefits those who have found this thread and not the likley hundreds of thousands of others who are not aware of the issue or this thread.

FWIW LinkedIn has seemed to fix the issue a long time ago so maybe you can give them a ring and ask them how.

hayjood

I am facing the same issue as well. Once I enable dropbox with files integration, battery life on my ipad just keeps draining!

Ralphcz

I just found this thread and want to add my two cents to this conversation. I have an iPad Pro 10.5 circa 2017 and it's an excellent device. Recently I noticed that the battery was appearing to not hold a charge and assumed it was because of the battery. A bit of research showed that Dropbox has been running in the background: in the past 10 days, I used Dropbox for 7 minutes, but it ran for 105 hours and 33 minutes in the background. I've tried to shut off the use of the background by Dropbox, but have yet to figure it out. It's a problem I could use some help with.....

Ralph

dineshatdragon

I was googling for this issue and was lucky to find this discussion. I have exactly same problem with iPhone 12 and iOS 14.2. Even after turning background app refresh off Dropbox continues to run in background. I have camera upload turned off and seldom I used drop box. In the end I decided to uninstall the app from iPhone until a fix is available

Alanl33

I have the same problem 99 hours in the last 10 days. 5 hours today. I’ve now disabled Dropbox in Apple’s file manager. Running iOS 14 on iPad on 12.9 iPad Pro 2020. I was wondering why my battery was draining so quickly.

Kobaitsari

I have the same problem. On my iPhone SE 2 and iPad Air 4, Dropbox simply destroys the battery if I keep it open in the Files App.

khcole

Well, because of this issue and the fact it's been years and DropBox still has not fixed the shortcut issue on iOS devices, I have finally migrated over the OneDrive. We will be canceling our other employees' user accounts. Too bad. Loved DropBox for all these years. But, like most large companies, they quit listening to their customers when they get "big"...

joejoh

Towards the end of 2020 and I thought life is miserable enough with pandemic around the world. Woke up late in the morning to find my iPhone X’s battery flat hence no alarm. The phone was switch to flight mode and background app refresh was disabled for Dropbox. From “Battery Usage” statistics, Dropbox was top of the list showing “-”. Switching to “Activity” statistics, that’s where I saw Dropbox still top of the list, showing “59m” throughout the night.
Like some has pointed out, it seems to be iOS issue letting Dropbox to run in background despite setting has disallowed it. Suggest Dropbox to fix this soon. I didn’t face this battery issue until last night. This matter may spread wider suddenly, shunning users from productive use of the app, and their phone.

RememberTilman

I found Dropbox battery usage was 76 hours in the last ten days. First time my iPad died overnight. Started at 95% charged, but Dropbox started draining the battery right at midnight.

TheMG

It's shocking how more and more people seem to be discovering this thread and yet STILL no resolution or offer from DropBox to repair damaged hardware.

Do we need to send a link to news sources to get anyone to pay attention?

Daphne

Thanks for joining the discussion here!

When you have the time, please check out my previous post here for some additional info on this.

I don't have any updates on the matter at the moment, but I can assure you that the team is still working on this.

Please give me a shout if there's anything I can help with in the meantime!

TheMG

We read your previous post (which, no offense, was absolutely useless, especially being as we still have had no resolution, progress update, etc.

Rather than just suggesting we wait indefinitely for a response, how can we get a manager involved in this conversation?

Rew1

Another user here who's been experiencing this problem for several months on my 10.5 iPad Pro. I've been searching the web for info about it periodically but finally just stumbled on this thread today. Unfortunately, I use Dropbox for work and rely on the Files integration functionality, so disabling it is a no-go for me, which means I simply have to deal with the battery-killing effect of this bug. Please fix!

koaaa

Jumping in here, these are of my ipad in the last 24Hrs.

Only this afternoon does the battery usage report 100% for Dropbox, but it is the only app to show up. I have mine set up the same way as the original poster as well, but I have not turned off my Files app integration with Dropbox yet (even though it looks like I have to).

What I find odd is that the battery usage shows Dropbox clearly being the only app open and a severe battery drain, but it does not report the percentage, nor does it show Files involvement.

TheMG

I don't think the files app actually ever shows up there (I just looked under the 10 day history and don't see it at all). Guessing it's represented under Settings or something (or who knows maybe a glaring omission by Apple).

But unlinking dropbox (and turning off all it's other junk (ex. running in the background)) seems to have fixed the rapid drain... except for the fact that my battery is pretty fried now (seems to have permanently lost about half it's capacity and now won't even last a full day).

I was hoping Dropbox would do the honorable thing and reach out, but when I get time was thinking about reaching out to alert one of the tech news sources to get some more attention to the issue or put the bug in one of those class action lawyers' ears.

singhs

Me too experiencing the same issue, Thanks for the context of the integration with the file app and sharing the patch. It doesn't seem like Dropbox is ever going to fix this. They are getting worse and worst day by day in every single way possible.

Graham B.7

Same issue again and still not resolved. Regretting coming back to Dropbox.

I fail to see how any bug cannot be fixed after several years of existence, assuming they actually make the effort.

I have paid for a service that I have to turn off on my iOS devices. Pretty poor.