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One of my Mac devices doesn't sync content from my Dropbox folder online.

This subject line has come up before, but my problem is not caused by filenaming errors.

I have dropbox on four computers; everything syncs fine except on one laptop: the laptop will update files that are edited on other machines, but anything I edit on the laptop will not sync to the desktop machines. This includes file edits, moving files/folders around and folder/file renaming. None of the relevant files are shared with other people, only with my account.

I've checked everything to do with firewalls and permissions, all of which are as they should be, reinstalled dropbox, logged out and in, restarted computer and updated operating systems. There is plenty of space in the Dropbox Pro account and on the laptop hard drive (and the hard drives of all other machines). All machines are running MacOs Ventura 13.7.4. All are correctly connected to the internet and have LAN sync enabled.

Some of the sync icons on the laptop show the blue active circle, but those are files that are updating from the other machines. Some files on the laptop have the red x and I cannot get them to upload to the cloud. I have tried making all the files offline only, to force them to sync to the cloud, but those that do show the cloud icon, are still not updating to the other machines. I have tried making the entire dropbox on this computer 'offline only', but still none of the files are updating/uploading.

There are no error messages, but the activity monitor seems to be permanently 'updating files'; only a few MB, but even leaving it chunking along overnight does not clear the updating queue.

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Comments

Megan

Hey there @Julia C.16 let's dig deeper into this!

I'd like to start with the app's current syncing status and version as shown in your menu bar at the moment. Can you check, and let me know more?

Out of curiosity, is the Dropbox folder located in the CloudStorage location?

Also, is it possible to connect to a different network/WiFi to test if the app works better that way?

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

Julia C.16

Hi Megan,

Current syncing status: is 'Syncing 473 files, 173MB. Those numbers change if I update something on another machine.

I don't know what the CloudStorage location is! The 'offline' file is sitting at the toplevel of my user account on each computer (i.e. Hard drive/Users/<username>/Dropbox

I regularly connect to different wi-fi or wired connections. I have use both wifi and wired at work (in a different part of the city), and at home I use three different wifi networks in the house (thick walls) but mainly have it plugged into the wired network with wifi disabled to improve speed as I have gigabit ethernet throughout the house.

The app doesn't work anywhere. I wondered if it was a problem with the OS, so upgraded, but no dice. It must be some weird setting on the laptop that I haven't found, although it seems to be trying to update, it just isn't succeeding. Because this is the machine I carry with me for work it is extremely disabling not to be able to get it to function. I'm having to manually copy things over, and inevitably I forget things I've done while I'm at work and get cross-versioned.

Julia C.16

I've just tried running the updater for the new sync system on File Provider, but this failed as I got a dialog box that read 'let your files finishing suncing , then try again'

Hannah

Thanks for the update on this, @Julia C.16 and for the additional info.

Can you please follow the steps in this post to see if they help?

Julia C.16

Thank you. I've just done that (both preferences and Hard links). I seem to have lost syncing in both directions since updating the OS. Do I need to reinstall Dropbox (again)? Certainly nothing is happening that wasn't happening before... i.e. currently no syncing and lots of red-x icons.

Julia C.16

Update: reinstalled Dropbox, then when I clicked on 'fix hard links' there was a progress icon so something happened that didn't happen when I tried it before. All of the red-x icons have now disappeared. A minor 'test' update on the laptop made last night (filename change) has still not shown up on the other computers, and updates I have made on the main computer this morning (new files) have not appeared on the laptop. I will give it a bit more time, but the amount of data it is trying to sync is very small according to the progress statement (389 files, 64 MB), and that should sync in a matter of seconds over LAN sync. Heading out to work now so it might or might not work on a remote connection... I will update this thread a bit later when it has had some more time.

Julia C.16

(I spoke too soon, red-x icons are back).

Hannah

Thanks again for the update, Julia.

If you click on the Dropbox icon in your menu bar, then on your initials/profile pic and then on "view sync issues", does the app report anything there?

Julia C.16

Surprisingly no, it has never listed any errors. At one point (about 10 days ago) it seemed to get stuck on a particular file; the display said it had finished syncing it, but there was an active activity bar below. I deleted the file on all machines, but it didn't seem to unblock it. It may be from that point that things stopped syncing properly, but it's difficult to pin down the start of problems to a specific time or action.

Hannah

Thanks for checking that, Julia.

As a test, can you move a file with the red x icon on it out of your Dropbox folder, and then back in to see if that makes any difference?

Julia C.16

There is definitely something different happening. A lot of the files that had cloud icons now have blue update icons. There are no red-x icons at the moment. The sync message says 2,009 files now, but sitll 62MB. I have tried previously moving folders and files out of the dropbox for 24 hours and putting them back, but they still don't sync.

Julia C.16

Files that I haven't accessed for months are trying to update. There are only three items in the activity list on the laptop, but hundreds on the computer. One of the items that has apparently updated today (on the laptop) is wrong: the activity list says I renamed the file 3 hours ago, but I haven't been near it for weeks. Yes, the computers have the correct dates and times on them!

Jay

Hi @Julia C.16, in order to look into this matter in more detail, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate further.

Julia C.16

I was about to drop you a note to say that something appears to be happening -- I had a 'conflicted copy' from the Laptop appear on my computer, which makes me wonder if all those blue cirecles are dropbox trying to catch up wtih itself. I've deleted the conflicted copy on the computer version, as it's an old one, but that hasn't gone through to the laptop yet. I wondered: is there a way of signing out, deleting all the files from my laptop, then signing in so that Dropbox has to rebuild itself completely? I'll make contact with your support team. Thank you for your efforts!