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Some folders aren't syncing to Mac device, but they are syncing to Windows and Linux

Hi Everyone,

I'm on M3 Mac, with the most recent Dropbox app. I noticed that specific shared folders will never show locally, in the file system, despite being marked for syncing. Tried both versions of Dropbox app, with and without the new File API. Reinstalled, redownloaded, redid everything I could think of - the result is always identical. The same folders will sync on Linux and Windows, so this looks like a Mac-only bug.

I think I identified the condition, under which the sync fails - could someone please confirm or falsify this?

- The folder must be shared

- The folder must have multiple substrings in the name, connected with a "-" (minus) symbol (possibly other symbols can cause problems, too)

- There must be more than one shared folder with the first substring being identical, e.g. "ABC-X1", "ABC-X2", "ABC-X3", all shared. With these conditions, either none, or just one of these three folders will show locally in Finder / in the local file system.

Thanks!

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Jay

Hi @X3ND, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Do any of the folders have incompatible characters for Mac OS, such as those listed in this article?

This will help me to assist further!

X3ND

Hi Jay,

[Edited]

No, none - and this happens with dozens of shared folders in my Dropbox - they simply all share the naming characteristic that I described. I realise that you'll treat me with suspicion, first looking for the blame on my end - but I've been using Dropbox for 10+ years, on three different OSes, and this time it it really does look to me like a bug.

But...

I just tested this by creating three fresh folders (ABC-X1, ABC-X2, ABC-X3), and for new folders the sync works ok. So it must be something more complex - but for already existing folders the problem persists, also for empty shared folders.

Thanks again!

X3ND

Hi again,

So, continuing my testing:

> I just tested this by creating three fresh folders (ABC-X1, ABC-X2, ABC-X3),

> and for new folders the sync works ok.

However, despite the fact that these test folders did show locally, I cannot un-sync them (!) - I've marked them to stop showing locally, and they still do.

Without even trying, I now expect that if I unliked dropbox app, deleted files, and re-downloaded them again, these three folders would now be gone.

So it looks like the bug actually does exist, and is relatively easy to reproduce, even for empty folders.

I look forward to someone trying this on their mac and confirming whether the issue exists as described above.

Thanks again!

Jay

Could you clarify exactly how you marked those folders to not appear locally? Did you use the selective sync feature, or something else?

X3ND

Yes, that's exactly what I did.

The three test folders are visible locally. I went to settings->selective sync, and unmarked FOUR folders (three test folders, and one differently named "reference" folder. The reference folder nicely disappeared from the local file system, while three test folders persist.

Thanks for continuing to help me, Jay 🙂

Jay

Thanks for the info, could you contact the support team directly for them to investigate this matter in more detail on their end?