Child Item

Dropbox Beta: Files show both icons simultaneously - green circle and cloud-arrow - but are offline

THX1965

I just moved to Dropbox beta for Mac (the latest version). After the folder successfully showed up in my new location, all files and folders were set to "offline only" - very annoying, but I guess that's the default behavior now. I had hoped it would recreate the previous state of what's offline and what's online. I am on a fast fiber optics internet connection and my computer was on overnight. Everything stayed offline. I now have to manually click on every single little cloud icon...

But there is something else that's clearly a bug. Everything that was previously set to "available offline" (which was the majority of my files), now has the green downloaded circle (including the correct file size) and the "offline-only" cloud icon. When I click on any of these files, they are in fact offline and have to be downloaded.

Am I alone with this strange behavior?

Thanks. - Markus

Screenshot 2023-03-12 at 10.40.12 AM.png

Find more posts tagged with

Desktop

Sync

Mac

Insightful

Closed - Partially Delivered

Comments

georgecwbrown

I upgraded to the Beta a few days ago & had this exact issue. I have zero idea why I have two different icons which I believe show the same thing but at the same time weren't accurate? Some files that I had the green tick for still had to be downloaded? It was very confusing. I'd even right clicked some files to make them available offline, they appeared to be downloaded, but on double clicking they started downloading again - wild!

I work in a photography/retouching workflow & also found that thumbnails for TIFS would no longer update/re-render an up to date thumbnail when files were edited. There were a bunch more issues that I really tried my best to work with, however after a few days of trying I've given up & opted out of the beta.

3 main killer issues with the beta:

- This article's green circle & cloud arrow inconsistency and inaccuracy

- thumbnail issue mentioned above

- when right clicking sync a folder to become offline, the old stable version shows you each file being downloaded & the progress of the downloads: the beta has none of this.

Every issue I had now has gone since returning to the old file location in the user folder. I sincerely hope I don't get forced back into it anytime soon as it really broke my workflow. I do realise its a beta but so many quality of life problems currently exist, it's super concerning.

Nancy

Hi @THX1965 and @georgecwbrown! I hope you’re both doing well.

After the Dropbox update for MacOS, the syncing icons you’re seeing are a bit different indeed. If you haven’t done so already, can you please take a look at this Help Center article and let me know if you have any questions afterwards?

georgecwbrown

Hi Nancy,

I know 🙂 I had the green ticks as I had made the files 'available offline' however it also had the 'online only' icon as well. Many of my files had both of the status symbols. However on attempting to open the files it decided to download them again.

I don't want to hijack this thread as I've opted out of the beta & resolved my own problem. So I'll hush now 🙂

georgecwbrown

I might add that both me & TH1965 know what the icons mean, we're not confused there. We just have both of them at the same time which I imagine shouldn't be possible? Something can't be 'available offline' & 'online-only' - one of them is lying. We have both made sure these files are supposed to be available offline, however on opening it re-downloads it... so... to conclude:
- Files we make available offline aren't actually being made available offline, it's giving it a green tick, but they're in fact staying 'online only' in reality until we try & open them.

THX1965

Hi @Nancy - thanks for the article. Yes, I have seen it and, of course, I am well familiar with the new icons.

However, a file can't be both - online-only (cloud+arrow) and available offline (green checked circle).

In these strange cases where both icons are showing, the green circle shouldn't be there because these files are only available online.

Hannah

Hey everyone, the engineering team is aware of this and are currently working on it.

Once we have more info, we'll update you as well.

Thanks!

all-at-once

Hello. I have the similar problems as described by THX1965 and georgecwbrown

I am using a MacBook Air with macOS Ventura 13.2, and Dropbox folder in my User home:

-- All Dropbox folders and files were recently automatically moved to online only status. Most annoying. I first discovered this when I was offline and needed to open a large mp4 quickly. I had to find an internet connection and then wait for the file to download from Dropbox cloud.

-- Right clicking a folder and choosing Make available offline. Get greencheck icon for folder. But each file in the folder has a green checkmark and a cloud icon. It appears that I must open each file to change to true offline status, green icon only.

-- Apparently this problem is not limited to a Beta version:

I do not recall the sequence - some months ago, I upgraded to Ventura and about the same time accepted the invitation from Dropbox to move my Dropbox folder from root to my User home. Initially, my choices for online only and offline were as before this move. I did not check the status of all folders and files, but I did not notice the double icon problem or the online only status of all files until sometime in the recent 2 weeks.

georgecwbrown stated a workaround: "...opted out of the beta & resolved my own problem." I am a beta-never user, but in case somehow I unknowingly was using a Beta, I found the page: https://help.dropbox.com/account-settings/beta_opt_out . In my menu bar icon Prefs/General, I do not have the option "Leave beta experience".

(I also logged into dropbox.com and checked that Early Releases has been targeted to Off.)

Until you sort this out, can you suggest any workarounds?

Possible to reinstall Dropbox? But even so, in your version history of my account, do you have the previous selections of files/folders for online only or offline?

While looking at various Dropbox pages, I recall a mention that if local disk space is low, Dropbox may declare some files as online only status. With my 250 Gb SSD, I do flirt with low free space, sometimes dropping to only about 10 Gb. When this happens, I should get an alert and a reminder of the option to set some files to online only. It's rather rude if your algos decide in my place, especially when all files and folders are wholesale removed from my machine.

Thank you for your help.

all-at-once

Hi @Hannah , Hi @Nancy ,

April 16, 2023

Please see my previous note from about 4 weeks ago (mid-March).

My Dropbox version is 171.4.6182, which is apparently the most stable release. I did not note which version or versions were installed when I wrote that note, or when the problem began. I am tempted to download a dmg to install a previous stable version, corresponding to the time when I first accepted the move of the Dropbox folder from my root to the User path. At that time, initially I did not have the problems described. If this might resolve the problem, which version would you suggest?

And if this works for me, how can I prevent the automatic update to current versions that are problematic?

Thanks

Walter

Hey @all-at-once, sorry for the late response.

If you're still having issues with this, could you try the following steps and let us know how it goes?

Open Finder.
Right-click the Dropbox folder
Click Make online-only or Make available offline to reset.

Note: You will need to select the Dropbox folder (as in the image below) to apply this setting to all files and folders.

Screenshot 2023-04-24 at 9.44.38 AM (1).png

all-at-once

Hello @Walter . *** This TL;DR (?) ends with a Workaround that might hold a clue for a fix.

Thanks for reply. Before attempting at the D'box folder level to reset to either Make online-only or Make available offline, do I assume that either option would apply to my entire D'box content? Or for various subfolders, would my preferences for online or offline be retained? (and especially I would hope re-establishing to the choices before this fiasco.) If the options would apply to my entire D'box content, then neither option is acceptable. For all offline, I only have about 50 Gb free on my 250 SSD. For the online only option (OOO), I certainly do not wish to then be obliged to ramble through all to choose which for offline.

I would like to return to whatever version or configuration that permitted right clicking a folder and selecting offline or online only for all the files in the folder. Or simply selecting a subset of files in the folder and choosing off or online.

Let's say a folder has a mix of jpg, mov, pdf, docx. As noted in my first post, for the moment, if I wanted all in the folder to be available offline, I must select those files that are opened by the same program, double click - which opens them all, and then close within each program. Then they have the green check only. This is of course most irritating and time consuming for folders with large files. BTW, same problem with even an individual file. Rt click: offline available: nothing happens. Gotta open the file to get it onto my SSD. Yuck !

Would it be possible to install a previous stable version, let's say from roughly November 2022 ? Idea is to return to whatever was working previously.

In the meantime, I have discovered a workaround of sorts, clumsy, but much less total time and hands-on time versus opening files in their apps :

Select the entire contents of a folder, whatever the types of files, or a subset of the files, rt click Compress to make an Archive.zip. In finder, one by one the cloud icon is replaced by the animated clock sweep icon to leave only the green icon. (If a multi-Gb zip, takes time, but you can do other things during the compression.) Delete the Archive.zip.

*** This workaround might give a clue to those who might be trying to understand and fix this problem. The compression object/routine must access and engage whatever classes are needed to simply download the file without opening it. (or the compression process does not have whatever bug prevents normal operation.....)

Best, Peter

pennyzee

I am having this issue after a clean install and I have done what you're saying to do, both Make Available Online and Make Available Offline, with no change. I'm still getting both icons on both. The only files that have only the green icon are synced by me hitting the cloud button to manually sync/download. There is absolutely zero chance I can do this with every file I need in a reasonable amount of time. These are big directories.

Nancy

Sorry to hear you're having the same issue, @pennyzee.

Just to clarify, are you mainly seeing both syncing icons for your files or folders (or both)?

In general, if both appear next to a folder, it means that this folder contains at least one online-only file, but any newly added files should become available offline by default.

If you don't mind, you can also send me a screenshot of what you see on your end (just make sure to hide any filenames you don't want us to see).

all-at-once

@Nancy @pennyzee

For large folders of files of different types, you might try the workaround I mentioned in a previous post in April.

With the folder open, select all the files you want available offline, and compress to make a zip. The processes to make a local zip require that all the files are open locally. This may take many minutes, but avoids opening each file with its specific app. Once all opened with the green check icon, delete the zip.

debeesniz

I'm having an issue on Mac (it's the latest version) where on my dropbox folder i have both a green checkmark and a cloud with a cross through it on all files. When i select the folder or files and click "make available offline" nothing changes but the checkmark. the File doesn't actually download. the only way to download the file is to physically try to open it, and i've noticed it goes back to online only after a while. It is not an ignored file as the default seems to be it being only on the cloud. I attached a photo to show what i mean. Attached is one file that i physically opened, the other is one that is set to be available offline but isn't actually.

Screenshot 2023-09-17 at 7.42.51 PM.png

Hannah

Hey @debeesniz, thanks for letting us know about this.

Can you try Walter's suggestion here, to see if it helps?

Make sure to also take a look at the rest of the thread I moved your post to, for more info on this.

coala

Hey there @all-at-once! I'm having the same problem... Did you manage to solve it correctly? I just can download when press 'Compress'... It's taking a long time to do even small actions.

Walter

Hey @coala - sorry to hear about this.

Could you maybe clarify your computer's OS version and the version and status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar?

If this persists after rebooting your computer and quitting and relaunching the app, please send us a screenshot so that we can have a visual too.

coala

Hey @Walter, thanks for the quick reply.

My OS is the Sonoma 14.1 and the Dropbox version is the v216.3.4299;

I already followed the recommendation to properly uninstall Dropbox, reinstalled it, logged in and it goes automatically to the CloudStorage again and again... I don't know what to do anymore. I'm losing hours of work just trying to solve that.

I already made the whole folder 'Online-only' and 'Offline', to reset it, but nothing changed.

The files are not downloaded until you open each of them... impossible to work like that!

Dropbox seems to be syncing eternally, and it doesn't shows up the actual size of the folder it's downloading, which is pretty strange too.

coala

@Walter?

Walter

Thanks for the additional information, the screenshot and the nudge as well @coala

Could you try signing out of your account through the app's preferences and then back in?

Let me know if syncing gets stuck again or it finally progresses and the app shows 'up to date' at some point.

coala

It seems that the only possible way for solving it is changing the location back to the Documents' folder, after signing out and in again... That File Provider was making all that mess.

I'm waiting for it to sync (3TB) and will come back with news.

Thanks.