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Dropbox (Win) not syncing "internal" symlinks created from Dropbox (mac)

On one of my mac computers, I created several symlinks inside Dropbox folder that point to other files or directories also inside the Dropbox folder. Those symlinks are synced to other mac computers or Linux computers, only as links, not including the full file content.

However, on my Windows computer, Dropbox refuses to download those symlinks, and keeps showing me a red "1" mark in the tray icon. When I click on the tray icon, it says it "couldn't sync" some files, and guides me to the "sync issues" list. When I open the sync issues list, all of the symlinks from the mac computer are listed with "Couldn't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename" remarks. But the symlinks names are completely normal and compatible with Windows file systems and hardly can be invalid (For example, "rvq_lln" (directory) "2022-05-02-fkzjufal2ja411.txt" (file)), so I can't "fix" the sync issues.

It seems that Dropbox Windows client does not have the ability to download symlinks (as just links, not full source file content) created from non-Windows systems, while mac and Linux clients can. Is this true? And if so, is this a bug or intended behavior? Any chance that this will be changed in the future?

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Здравко

@grimhike wrote:
On one of my mac computers, I created several symlinks inside Dropbox folder that point to other files or directories also inside the Dropbox folder. Those symlinks are synced to other mac computers or Linux computers, only as links, not including the full file content.
...

Hi @grimhike,

A link may point to a file or folder in different way. Path to target object (file or folder) can be set relative to the link position, relative to user home position or be absolute! How all your links point to their targets? 🤔 If, for example, on one MAC, your user name is 'user1' but on other 'user2', target file on the first device with path /Users/user1/Dropbox/myFile.txt on the second device will look like /Users/user2/Dropbox/myFile.txt. In such a way link pointing myFile.txt on the first device using absolute path will point to nowhere on the second device (there is NOT such path 🙂). Similar situation can come up when relative to user home is used (when Dropbox place changes). Only link path you can rely will work properly on Dropbox (and not only) is relative to link position! 😉 Make sure you have set correct path in the correct WAY.

Hope this helps.

grimhike

Most of the symlinks are relatively linked, namely the target paths do not go beyond the root Dropbox path. For example, I have

/some/path/to/Dropbox/project-x/reports/annual/2021/report.pdf

as a real file. Then I create a symlink to that as follow;

/some/path/to/Dropbox/project-x/reports/quarter/2022/q1/last.pdf

by this command;

$ cd /some/path/to/Dropbox/project-x/reports/quarter/2022/q1
$ ln -s ../../../annual/2021/report.pdf last.pdf

and the OS shows the correct relative path

$ ls -l
...
... last.pdf -> ../../../annual/2021/report.pdf

Dropbox on the computer on which I created the link has no problem uploading the file and symlink. On the flip side, if the client is mac or Linux, Dropbox has no problem downloading the link, and the link works as expected. However, when the flip side is Windows, Dropbox refuses to download the file at all saying there's an issue in the file name (which is not true).

There is a symlink in my Dropbox that I created on mac and it's actually linked via an absolute path. So the target path starts with `/Users/my_name/Dropbox/...` but the Dropbox desktop on a Linux has no problem downloading the link. It's the OS that cannot resolve the path following the link (because on the Linux machine, there's no such file). Again, the Windows Dropbox client just refuses to download it in no time, showing that red "1" notification.

Здравко

@grimhike I don't work on Windows machines (no very often at least), so can't comment Dropbox behavior on Windows (most probably some new bug - ops sorry, "feature" of Dropbox). I'm glad that the issue:

@grimhike wrote:
... Those symlinks are synced to other mac computers or Linux computers, only as links, not including the full file content.
...

.... is clear where is coming from already.

Let's hope some Windows user will give you valuable advice about rest of your question. 😉

Good luck.

grimhike

@Здравко thanks for chipping in! Your follow-up helped a lot clarify my questions/bug-report.

I'm thinking this probably is a bug, as the official documentation from Dropbox reads

Symlinks (symbolic links), aliases, shortcuts, junction points, resource forks, and networked folders can be used in the Dropbox folder on your computer to reference other files in the Dropbox folder on your computer.

(from https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/symlinks)

I understand the complexity of converting POSIX symlinks to Windows symlink and vice versa. I hope that Dropbox would come up with a reliable implementation of the cross-platform support for symlinks, but in the meantime, at least admits that symlinks do not work cross-platform in the cited documentation and fixes the error messages I'm getting from "file name issue" to something actually addresses the issue and stops bugging me with those meaningless red notifications.

Здравко

@grimhike wrote:
...
I understand the complexity of converting POSIX symlinks to Windows symlink and vice versa. ...

Complexity???! 🧐 What kind of complexity? 🤔

Yes, if we are talking for absolute path within links. Conceptions for FS root in POSIX and in Windows are completely different. BUT, here we are talking for relative path within links, relative to the link position. If we take a look for differences, what will we able find out? -> Different path separator - should be replaced slash to backslash and vice versa. 😁 Is this something complex???! Everything else is the same!

I would wish to every programmer the most complex tasks ever meets to be this level of complexity at most. 😜