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New macOS app – bumpy ride. Script/access issues, indexing…

I have to say that the “new” Dropbox (167.4.419 as of now) app for macOS has been a bumpy ride, and that’s putting it mildly. I have been a happy paying customer for more than five years, but for the first time, I consider cancelling my subscription and using alternatives.

This major update came out of the blue, telling me that my Dropbox folder would be moved to ~/Library, and giving me no alternative.

1. I am working with (bash) shell scripts that need to access Markdown and HTML files in Dropbox – this is actually my main use case. Unfortunately, after Dropbox moved its folder to that “secure” location (~/Library/CloudStorage), the scripts won’t run anymore (it makes sense that a user bash scripts can’t / shouldn’t be able to waltz around the Library folder). E.g., cpio (required for copying files and folders) returns errors due to symlink issues. This used to be a generic user folder, i.e. “mine”. Now I have to deal with OS security intricacies.

2. Even after multiple restarts and 24 hours since I started migration, the Dropbox menu bar app still says “Syncing”, but it won’t tell me *what* it is syncing (the file-level queue drop-down shows no activity). A little more verbosity would be nice. There were obviously some file issues in a deeply hidden folder, but even after removing these files, synchronization won’t stop. This is a problem, as I am syncing to a second machine and need to know if/when everything is up-to-date.

3. When I select Dropbox from the Finder sidebar and navigate e.g. to a folder called “writings” that I know to contain a few hundred indexable files, Spotlight (the macOS file indexing and search system) doesn’t seem to see their content, claiming e.g. there are zero files containing the word “who”. However, when I switch to “On my Mac” instead of Dropbox/folder, files are immediately shown. When I check their location, they are… tadah! in Dropbox/writings. Something’s broken here.

All in all, this doesn’t look like a very well-tested version to me.

Not happy.

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Jay

Hi @Wintermute, thanks for messaging the Community.

We appreciate the feedback about the new version of the Dropbox desktop application for Mac OS. You can see a list of changes brought on in this version here.

Regarding the Spotlight behavior you're experiencing, could you try these steps to see if they help?

Keep me updated with any progress!

Wintermute

Hi @Jay ,

the Spotlight re-indexing fix (issue 2 above) worked, thank you.

I’ll work around the Bash script issues mentioned above (1) “locally”.

This leaves the problem of the never-ending “Syncing…” state. (3)

I found a few conflicting / double files and removed them, but this doesn’t seem to help. Normally the Dropbox client will show the files it is syncing by name, but not now, so I have no idea what’s going on and how to resolve it.

Any idea how to pinpoint this and get the sync to finish?

In the meantime, I have rebooted my second Mac. It’s now on Dropbox 167.4.4719 as well, and I hope when it’s done indexing the moved folder (ETA 2 hours), there won’t be more probs…

Jay

In the Dropbox folder itself, do you see any folders or files that have the syncing grey circle icon on them?

Wintermute

No. There were a few “conflicting copies” files with an outlined grey cloud icon after the initial migration to ~/Libary/. I removed these files, but even after reboots, the desktop app stays on “Syncing”.

Jay

Following a migration to the new Dropbox for macOS, your files need to be re-synced. Depending on the amount of files you have in your Dropbox, this may take some time to complete.

You can try checking out the troubleshooting steps outlined in this article.

Note that we do not recommend re-installing the application if the migration is still in progress.

chazzo1

@Wintermute sorry to hear about your sync and Spotlight issues. I hope those have resolved, and also that you have the latest version of Dropbox. Even in the old days I found that the "Up to date" message was not always actually true. On my M1 mini I'm on 168.3.4787, and my files moved to CloudStorage only in the last month or so.

I found your post after discovering that a shell script of mine apparently can't use a file stored in Dropbox as an argument. Specifically, this is a zsh script within an Automator service; the script uses pandoc to convert Markdown to RTF, and I use pandoc's `-H` argument to supply a css file. If the css file is stored in Dropbox the script fails, whereas it used to be fine.

In other words I'm only trying to read the file, not write or copy it. Do you think this is the same kind of issue that you mentioned in your first point? If so, I agree it's a real pain. I guess there are ways to run a script as root…

I use Automator services for other file-processing jobs that work OK in the Dropbox folder. Do we assume that an app like Automator has the necessary privileges but the shell doesn't?

Wintermute

Hello @chazzo1 ,

I was able to resolve the scripting problems (1) – like you, I’m working with Pandoc, plus a bunch of shell scripts, and cpio wouldn’t work over the Dropbox symlink.

However, I found that the scripts will “play nice” if you cd to the actual location (at cd /Users/ [user name] /library/cloudstorage/dropbox/ [code location] and work from there. You may be able to get your script working by doing the same with the path to your CSS.

Other than that, I know next to nothing about Automator, so I can’t help much.

The Spotlight indexing issue (3) was resolved using the tip linked by Jay above.

What remains for me is the unspecific “Syncing…” state that just won’t stop (2), so I have no idea what is happening. Even after four days and multiple relaunches, it hasn’t gone away, although I’m only sing 1% of my 2TB quota.

I may just end up moving all my files out of Dropbox and then back in, hoping this will lead to a fully synced state.