I ran into problems where multiple machines I own did not have their dropbox content synchronized. Simply performing "dropbox stat" was insufficient. If one of the machines had been offline for awhile, it would take minutes to synchronize the data and download any missing files.
This started (on LInux mint) as: "while true; do dropbox stat;sleep 15; done"
It has evolved into a pair of scripts. The first verifies that my network (WAN) access is alive and well and then initializes the state of dropbox for my machine. These scripts also include a number of supporting general purpose scripts.
Here is sample output in verbose mode:
dropstat -s 1 -t 1 -c 8 -v
logdir=$HOME/Dropbox/.dropboxdir/logs/start-stats
currentmonth=2025-10
nowdir=$HOME/Dropbox/.dropboxdir/logs/start-stats/2025-10
dropstat: Starting dropbox and auto-installing the
dropstat: dropboxd if not available and running on the
dropstat: current system
dropbox start -i
dropstat: starting again to make sure it starts
dropbox start
dropstat: putting dropbox into lansync mode to speed it up
dropbox lansync y
dropstat: setting dropbox to autostart after each boot
dropbox autostart y
dropstat: starting network status check
netup(main):247: [PASS] lenovo.com AVG:332.902 MAX:391.487
netup(main):247: [PASS] ibm.com AVG:53.856 MAX:55.774
netup(main):247: [PASS] google.com AVG:38.737 MAX:40.055
netup(main):247: [PASS] gutenberg.org AVG:294.259 MAX:344.225
netup(main):247: [PASS] cisco.com AVG:264.000 MAX:318.673
netup(main):247: [PASS] dell.com AVG:275.083 MAX:313.784
netup(main):247: [PASS] time.com AVG:12.239 MAX:13.740
netup(main):247: [PASS] asus.com AVG:174.022 MAX:228.123
netup(main):247: [PASS] dropbox.com AVG:39.943 MAX:41.630
netup(main):247: [PASS] ddn.com AVG:43.304 MAX:43.987
netup(main):247: [PASS] amazon.com AVG:252.489 MAX:316.353
netup(main):247: [PASS] yahoo.com AVG:269.798 MAX:316.586
finished 1 of 1
[PASS] lenovo.com
[PASS] ibm.com
[PASS] google.com
[PASS] gutenberg.org
[PASS] cisco.com
[PASS] dell.com
[PASS] time.com
[PASS] asus.com
[PASS] dropbox.com
[PASS] ddn.com
[PASS] amazon.com
[PASS] yahoo.com
goodsuccess=1200
totsuccess=1200
[PASS] Got a score of 100
[PASS] completed network check with a score of 100
2025-10_15:03:45:renidea:10.0.4.15 00:01:29
Dropstat: Dropbox is Up to date
Dropstat took 89 seconds
Here is the -h output
dropstat -h
dropstat(main):107: dropstat [-[hv]] [-[dsp] <#>]
Monitor how long dropbox takes to begin processing
-c <#> set the ping count per site to #
-d <#> Set the diagnostic levels
Use -vh to see debug modes
-h Print this help message
-l <site1 site2 ...> enclosed in double quotes to provide a
list of sites to ping to verify that the network is alive.
This is used to insure that we should be able to reach dropbox
-s <#> Set the sleep between pings for testing network up
-t <#> The number of test loops to delay starting
-v turn on verbose mode for this script
Use -vh to see diagnostic levels
If there is general interest, I will post the Bash source files and supporting scripts
