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Conflicting copies of excel file

Our small company of 3 have been using Dropbox Online for 2 years. We are all on Apple Macs, running the latest version of Mac OS, working at home

Recently the Dropbos app for Mac was updated, and now we are having the following problems

1. When a file is opened, changed and saved, it is saved as a conflicted copy, even when there is only 1 person working on the file. I know this can happen when the file is open and someone else makes changes.

2. We have a master file for data, and hundreds of other files are linked to extract data from this file. When the data in the Master is updated with data for a specific excel file and saved. I then open the excel file , and the updated data is not in the file. All the older date is there,

Something is not working. We are all very novice Dropbox users and have tried to trouble shoot, but nothing seems to be working.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Russell

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Accepted answers

Jay

Thanks for the info about the Badge, this might help reduce the conflicted copies on your account.

Regarding the links, since the Dropbox folder has moved, the location of local files are now different on your machine. Has the Dropbox folder moved for all your colleagues, or just on your machine?

Are you able to create a symlink or alias to the new location of the Dropbox folder?

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Jay

Hi @rdt17, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Firstly, could you clarify how you open a file? Is it on the Dropbox site, via an app, from within Finder? What file are you opening?

How are the Excel files linked to the original? Is it via a formula in the Excel file or using a script or other feature?

This will help me to assist further!

rdt17

Hi Jay,

Thanks for stepping in.

We have Dropbox App in our laptops, and open all the excel files, by selecting the specific file we want to open.

Files are linked with a straight forward Excel Data Link, awhen they are established.

Jay

Does anyone have the file open at any point? You can tell by using the Dropbox Badge. Does this occur every time?

Does anyone use the web version of Excel to edit files while you're in the file?

rdt17

No to both questions.

Could it be that, because the whole Dropbox folder was moved in the update, that the file links are not working?

rdt17

We don't see any Dropbox Badge.

Before the files were moved, we did receive a notification if the file was open and someone was working on it. But not anymore.

rdt17

I see the Dropbox badge was set to Never, so that explains and hopefully solves one issue, namely conflicting files.

However the issue of links not updating is this there

Jay

Thanks for the info about the Badge, this might help reduce the conflicted copies on your account.

Regarding the links, since the Dropbox folder has moved, the location of local files are now different on your machine. Has the Dropbox folder moved for all your colleagues, or just on your machine?

Are you able to create a symlink or alias to the new location of the Dropbox folder?

rdt17

Hi Jay,

I have re-established the links to hundreds of excel file, and it does seem to be working now.

thanks for the feedback.

Jay

Glad to hear that it seems to be working now! If you need any further assistance in the future, please let me know.

Enjoy your week ahead!