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Large Dropbox downloads fail at 20% and the site becomes unreachable

Device: HP Laptop 15-da0xxx
Operating System/Browser: Windows 11
Dropbox App Version/Browser Version: Edge 127.0.2651.105, Firefox 129.0

Question or Issue:

When trying to download or sync large files from Dropbox (either via a shared link or after adding them to my own account), the transfer consistently fails around 10–20 percent completion. I often get HTTP Error 403 in my download manager, or the download just stops. After this happens, Dropbox.com or the shared link stops loading completely for several minutes before becoming accessible again. I’ve tested this on multiple browsers, devices, and networks, and other large downloads (7GB plus) from non-Dropbox sources work fine. I even started a free trial of the Professional plan (3TB) to rule out storage limits, but the problem persists. The issue seems specific to Dropbox. I need these files urgently for work, so any insight or fix would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments

Jay

Hi @ronnie99, thanks for messaging the Community!

Just for clarification, are you getting this error when not using a download manager on your browser?

Do you have any proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router settings that could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains?

This will help me to assist further!

ronnie99

Hi,

Yes, the issue also happens when downloading directly from the browser without any download manager.

I’ve tried with and without VPN, on different networks, and the problem persists. No special proxy, firewall, or security software is blocking Dropbox as far as I know.

I can download large files from other sites without any issue.

Jay

Could you try asking the owner of the shared links to create a Dropbox Transfer link to send the files to you directly to see if this helps?

Nancy

Hey @ronnie99, hope it’s alright if I chime in.

Did you have the chance to test this further, as per Jay’s instructions above? If you did, and you need further assistance or if something helped you resolve the issue, please let us know.