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Fixed in this update:
Hi @Rachel L.,
Welcome back to the Community and thanks for letting us know!
I can appreciate your situation (especially the strenuous circumstances your laptop is under). From a lot of the feedback I've seen on the Community, the more files and data you're syncing, the longer the process takes. I have also seen users mention that it's faster if your machine is left on rather than letting it go to sleep.
In regards to your ticket, have you tried responding to the support agent's last response?
I've left my computer on constantly so far, aside from one brief Internet outage (a few minutes), it's been syncing constantly for 2 days now, I'm not even using the computer to do other tasks--syncing only. It says roughly 293,000-odd files and 240-odd GB. (Oddly, it also says it's downloading 1600-odd files, though I told it to make everything online only until this is resolved.) Aside from one or two files in either direction, the file number and data amount never changes, always the same. Also oddly, only 3 random files appear in the activity popup, the same 3 files the entire time.
I can't do a screengrab but I'll try to attach a photo. It's been the same for 2 days now.
My help ticket's last response was to clear the Dropbox cache (I did, it indeed freed up my hard drive space, BUT there's a very slow creep of it starting to use this space again, it's shifted from 112GB to 109GB free, when I should be gaining space since I made everything online only) and let it sync; they then abruptly marked my ticket as solved before I could try this. My issue isn't solved yet. In addition to the ongoing syncing, the conflicted sync folders which were removed from my account at my request are still showing up on my laptop, while only one of my actual folders is showing up, the others have disappeared. I don't know if that's related to me making them online only?--they always showed up before.
Plus there's all the nonsensical sync icons. Almost nothing is showing as being online only. Individual files are white-and-green checkmarks or green checkmarks, most folders are still syncing, a couple have a red X. Again, all but one of these are conflicted sync folders which shouldn't even be there, with only one legitimate folder (the other legit folders are missing).
I thought the folder issue might clear up once the sync is complete, but I have no way to know for sure, so I'm perplexed why my ticket was marked as solved.
EDIT, I see no option to attach a photo, I'll try a link?--though the forum keeps rejecting those too, it seems.
EDIT, I can't post a link to my image either even though there's a link option. Guess you'll just have to take my word for it. Whoever updated the forum format may want to look into this.
Will a link that's not a link work...? No idea how we're supposed to provide screengrabs here anymore.
i.imgur.com/RRYgtyT.jpg
Nearly 3 days now. No signs of progress aside from it slowly consuming my hard drive space again (down from 112 to 106GB so far) when I should be gaining space from making it online only. I know I can clear the cache again but that'll probably just re-start the syncing. The ONE folder showing as cloud only in my photo?--it's now marked as preparing to sync. Is this thing just syncing over and over and over again??
And it's the weekend now, so, no answer even if I reopen my ticket for at least another 2 days.
What happens if you opt out of this abominable update? Somebody said it's the "most disruptive option"? Does it just start this process all over again?
Yes it does. But on my case it was faster and more reliable. The official instructions are not very complete but I have posted more comprehensive instructions in this thread.
I don't get notifications of replies on this forum anymore for some reason (yet another thing recently broken) so I didn't see this until now, thank you for replying. I've attempted reopening my help ticket (the last response came around 9:30 at night, it was marked as solved around 1AM afterwards, less than 4hrs, before I could even turn my computer back on) and will wait till I hear back before trying to undo the update, though that means waiting at least another day.
That's it, I give up. Still syncing after almost 4 days, no progress in sight other than my hard drive space dropping from 112GB to 103GB and still dropping. I haven't been able to use my laptop or properly back up my files for over a week. I paused the sync, closed Dropbox, and shut down.
I then checked a couple of folders, my one original folder that's still showing (the others disappeared--another bug?), one conflicted sync folder (ANOTHER bug). ALL OF THIS has been marked as online only--though technically, that conflicted sync folder shouldn't even be there. It opened up both files I tried, an HTML file and an image. Did not prompt me to connect to Dropbox again to download. What has this update been doing the past 4 days? Definitely not what I told it to do. I don't even plan to upgrade this old thing to Windows 11 so the update is useless on this computer. Unfortunately, I'd had thoughts of getting a new Windows 11 computer, but if this is what I have to look forward to backing up my files, I have no idea how I'd proceed.
Garbage update.
Hi @Rachel L. @jeremyklein @Pascal Kuratli @MarkDrye,
We've reached out to you by email to confirm some details for us to look into this behavior. If you could respond to the email thread, we'll continue support there.
Thank you!
Hi @Neal12345 I have seen a few "our team is aware of this" messages - but didn't hear anything concrete - is there in fact any news to share? This was a couple of days of wasted productivity and $$ for me, it would be useful to know how the problem came about - and, more importantly - how we'll get a heads-up in advance of changes that potentially might lead to this kind of issue in future? Many thanks
Hi @nano2,
I appreciate your concern and how stressful this can be.
While the team is still investigating, I can't offer any new information but one of our engineers has suggested opting out of Cloud Files if you are still experiencing issues.
Hello, I had a "later" version 229.3.5074 that was causing very similar problems to the ones in this stream above ("offline" downloads folders I tell it to leave online, and leaves online many folders I tell it to bring "offline." And, in the App itself, under Preferences/Manage Hard Drive space, it still does not update/show all the folders it has brought off-line, just very few of them.) A dropbox Support guy asked me to replace that "beta" version with this "stable" version 228.4.5567. But this thread makes that advice seem incorrect. This is totally ridiculous, not having one firm/stable version that actually works the way it is supposed to, with incorrect guidance being given from support staff to Customers.
I'm thinking that I want to just disable this update (sounds like Dropbox techs are even suggesting it now!) rather than try a fix yet end up sitting waiting for days again because this is considered normal behavior. I'll try to bring it up one more time in my help ticket I guess as I try the fix anyway.
I notice you mention this:
"Furthermore, to recreate Dropbox folders you have to delete the old Dropbox folder once you are sure that Dropbox isn't running. Otherwise you end up with incorrectly named folders etc. Before you delete any folders, double check that Dropbox isn't running!"
I'm uncertain what's meant by "the old Dropbox folder" which needs to be deleted, could you elaborate?
Thanks for responding - can you please give instructions for how to "opt out of Cloud files" as the engineers have suggested to do?
FYI my Dropbox seems to be stable again now - but it was a very stressful few days while it did its thing to catch up with itself, and lost days of work that I can't charge for - and $$ for extra data - so my question is really about 1) what happened and 2) what steps will be taken to mitigate for future (e.g. can I be notified in advance of any potentially problematic "upgrades", or set to manual?) Thanks a lot
You will currently have a folder called 'Dropbox'. I also had one called 'Dropbox old' or something similar which may have got created by the update. But anyway, you need to get rid of the existing Dropbox folder so that the folder can be re-built from scratch. Once you quit Dropbox you get a message saying it is safe to delete the folder. So at that point you can delete it. Then, when you log in again, the folder will be created from scratch. You'll need to opt out of cloud files of course.
It got me back to where I was prior to the update.
I hope this helps.
This is unacceptable!
Response I just sent to my help ticket which instructed me to delete the conflicted folders and try anew. My art folder is gone??--not even in my Dropbox deleted files! AND some of my subfolders, including one I use every day, are completely gone even from the conflicted folder!
EDIT: *deep breath* All right...okay. I apologize. The "missing" folder is in fact a subfolder and is still there. Sigh. But the rest of the mess persists.
An update, I've deleted all the conflicted folders, emptied the recycle bin, and cleared the Dropbox cache. This appears to have finally made everything online only. Restarted Dropbox. Started to sync but then paused it to check the folders I told it to ignore. It had added some conflicted folders (which no longer exist) and they were set to be offline--I did NOT manually choose that, and I previously set new files to be online, so Dropbox is changing settings on its own. I deselected them all again and resumed the sync. It quickly went through the files, but now seems stuck on 4 small conflicted sync files in the Dropbox folder: print (Selective Sync Conflict).css, main (Selective Sync Conflict).css, feed-icon16x16 (Selective Sync Conflict).png, and counter (Selective Sync Conflict).js. These files are the only conflicted ones remaining in the Dropbox folder and showing in the status box. It says they're synced so maybe they're not the issue, but Dropbox is still stuck syncing something, I don't know what. It shows no data, file number, or time remaining estimate. Just says "syncing." These 4 files have no non-conflicted copy I can see, and I don't know what files/programs they might be connected to, so I'm reluctant to delete them. What is Dropbox still syncing?
Even more bothersome, all of my original file folders (Special Characters in HTML_files, TehutiArt, TehutiBackups, TehutiCreations, TehutiFiles, TehutiMisc) are gone or invisible. They don't show up in the Dropbox folder, even as online only. I wish to manually select which folders to make offline but I literally can't do that if they aren't there.
Crud...I also just noticed that Selective Sync Conflict folders are appearing again on my mobile devices yet not the laptop (yet). Even worse!--I just noticed that the original TehutiArt folder, which I use every day, is missing from my account entirely! There's only the conflicted copy!
I'm pausing the sync yet again. I followed the instructions but this is a hopeless mess. I look forward to clear instructions on how to disable the update and start afresh. I also hope to get my original folders back!
There's an old link remaining to one of my original subfolders (which I since marked as online only) which no longer shows in the Dropbox folder though it seems it should?--when I tell it to ignore folders it does say they won't show on the hard drive yet how am I supposed to manually make things available offline without un-ignoring a folder and downloading EVERYTHING in it...? You used to be able to see online-only folders on your hard drive even if you couldn't open the files.
Anyway when I click this link I get an error message now (trying to attach image to post, hold on):
Why can't you rewind your entire Dropbox to a week or so ago? You'd do this on the web version of Dropbox. Then quit the desktop app, delete the local files and then rebuild the local directory according to the rewound version of Dropbox.
I've generally found that rewinding works well.
I'm not sure how well rewinding would work, as I've added/updated files since then via mobile.
I'm also perplexed how some conflicted folders returned when all folders were deleted or invisible. There seems to be something buggy there.
@Rachel L. If it were possible to copy the new or updated files away from Dropbox, then you wouldn't have to worry about them. Then you can rewind without losing anything.
From what you are saying, I think you'd need to rewind to before the update. You could even try this out for a particular directory to see whether it works.
The thing to remember is that the 'true' version of Dropbox is the cloud version. You ought to be able to rewind to the time before conflicted folders. So if it were me, I'd be trying to get that version into what I want. And then download to the desktop.
