Child Item

Consistent 'upload failure' error when uploading videos from the Dropbox app on iOS

Device
iPhone SE
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 10

Question or Issue

Within the last week, several times I successfully uploaded large video files from my iPhone to my PC - well, after switching off the display time out on the iPhone, because how stupid of me to expect a background process like an upload to continue if I wasn't watching it second by second. These were file of 8Gb in size. Took some time, but uploaded reliably.

Three days ago, a video upload failed. Since, every single attempt at uploading a video has failed. I managed to upload a photo, a couple of Mb; but videos even of only 2 or 3Gb fail now: 'Upload Failed'. Often I've gotten a "the file may have been deleted", which is funny since I can still open and view the videos normally there on the phone.

Why is this happening?

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Comments

Hannah

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, @JungleT.

Have you tried restarting your device ever since this started happening?

If that doesn't help, try uninstalling and reinstalling the Dropbox app as well and let us know how it goes.

Thanks in advance.

JungleT

Seriously? Hahahahaha.

Dropbox is so badly made now that it just clutters up its working cache with - on my phone >20Gb - of caching for uploads and never cleans it up? And the "Clear cache" in Settings barely touches it either?

Hahahahaha. Hahahaha. En**bleep**tified, much?

Dell_Dropbox

@JungleT It's totally understandable you're frustrated with the errors you're getting, but we need a little info from you in order to go through the process of troubleshooting.

Have you tried restarting your machine and reinstalling the Dropbox app?

I know the opening questions may seem pointless, but help us out!

JungleT

It's understandable if you're making a cache copy of, say, a bunch of photos that have been selected for uploading, so that you don't have to file-lock all the originals until the upload ends.

It's unforgivable if you do so without running a check on available storage space and raising an error if there isn't enough.

It's unforgivable if you're piling up abandoned cached files and never, say, checking on app startup and clearing them out.

Yes, this has been an immensely frustrating experience, because of bad software design.

No files marked on the iPhone for offline availability; yet >20Gb of storage usage for Dropbox; and no way to identify how Dropbox is using that space? Delete & re-install as a solution? It's hard to take Dropbox seriously if you act like this.

JungleT

I got enough space to upload my three video files by deleting & reinstalling Dropbox.

I deleted the original video files in iPhone Photos.

I then accessed "Recently deleted files" in iPhone photos and re-deleted them.

My installed-yesterday Dropbox, again with no files made available offline, now uses over 20Gb of iPhone storage.

My only solution here is to delete Dropbox from my iPhone. Please fix your annoying, pointlessly wasteful use of iPhone storage.

JungleT

Could you guys at Dropbox please give up the destructive, wasteful idea that you have to make a second local copy of anything on the phone before you upload it? It is IMMENSELY FRUSTRATING to need twice the size of a long video file available just to be able to get it uploaded and delete it from the phone to maintain free space.

The most elegant programming solution is simply to lock all the files submitted to an upload, releasing the locks as you finish handling each file. Please take that approach.

The very very least that conscientious program design demands is that if you're going to make a copy and it won't fit in the available storage space, you spot that *before you accept the upload and spend hours actioning it until you run into the buffers* like a bunch of **bleep**ing idiots.

And try some more communicative messaging than "Upload failed". Jesus!

JungleT

And who knew that using "clear storage" in the Dropbox app settings, in frustration at the app's impossibly impoverished storage management, is a no-questions-asked way to irrecoverably delete your offline files, so that you don't even have a list any more of what the names of those filed was?

The hits just keep on coming when your program is badly designed.