Child Item

Wrong status icons showing on subfolders set to online only on Windows

Device

HP Elite 8200
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)

WIndows 10 Pro v22H2 ESO
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)

(234.4.5905)

See attachment

The four subfolders Year 2021, Year 2022, Year 2023 and Year 2024 are in a parent folder called "Film Archives" which is set to "online-only". The parent folder shows the correct icon, all of the thousands of subfolders within those four subfolders show the correct icon, but those four subfolders do not. They show the "Available on this device" icon.

The properties for those four subfolders show "Size on disk: 0 bytes", so there cannot be any offline files in those paths causing this.

When I right click any of those folders, there is no option to "Make online only"

I have searched and deleted hidden and system files such as "Thumbs.db" and "Desktop.ini" but it has not made any difference.

I have even tried renaming them, and creating a new folder and trasferring all the content to new folder. The new folder got the wrong icon

I really need this to function correctly because users are adding content to these folders from connected workstations

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this?

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Comments

Jay

Hi @Photo O., thanks for messaging the Community.

Could you check if you have any hidden files or folders in these folders with zero byte files in them?

Would it be possible to get clarification on what you mean by other users adding content from connected workstations? Are there shared folders within the folders you indicated?

Have you tried marking one of the 'Year' folders as available offline, and once completed, mark it again as online-only to see if this helps?

Keep me updated with any progress!

Photo O.

Thank you for getting back to me

- Hidden files or folders... I have checked for hidden files and system files. I did find some "Thumbs.db" files, which I deleted. Also found a couple of "desktop.ini" files which I also deleted. Not sure how to go about searching for folders or files according to their file sizes. I will get back to you about this.

- Other users adding content... We have other work stations, all linked to the same Dropbox account. People doing work at those workstations also send folders to the Film Archive.

- Marking Year folders... Trying that now. It will take a long time to finish downloading and uploading, so I will get back to you about that.

Worth noting:

- I was wrong about the Parent Folder, "Film Archive" showing the correct status icon. It actually shows the wrong icon... same one as the year subfolders.

- All the other workstations show the wrong icons as well, which to me indicates that whatever is causing the problem is being uploaded to Dropbox, and not something living on the computer that is not being uploaded.

Hannah

Thanks for the update and the additional info here, @Photo O..

Please get back to us when you have more info on what Jay suggested and we'll go from there!

Photo O.

OK, so I have found the problem. It seems there is a hard limit on the number of subfolders allowed in any parent folder.

As a test, I created a new folder called Yr 2021 set it to online only, and started copying folders, a few at a time from Year 2021 to Yr 2021. Everything was going well at first, then suddenly, the icon on Yr 2021 changed to the green "Available on this device" icon. I tried looking through the last few folders I copied, but could not see anything out of place there. So I started transferring them back, and after a few copies, the icon swapped back to the correct one. I tried just adding "New folder" subfolders, and as soon as I hit 250, the icon switched to the wrong one. It seems the hard limit is 249 subfolders. Anything over that and the wrong icon is displayed.

First I tried putting three subfolders inside Year 2021 and transferred about 200 folders into each subfolder. That didn't work, so I renamed Year 2021 to Year 2021-1, and created three new folders, Year 2021-2, Year 2021-3 and Year 2021-4. I then distributed all the folders (about 700 altogether among those three folders. That worked, and all four folders showed the correct icon. Of course, the Parent folder "Film Archive" shows the wrong icon, because it contains a lot more subfolders.

A hard limit on subfolders is probably not a good idea and needs addressing. Windows has no limit on the number of subfolders in a parent folder (nor does MacOS) and nor should Dropbox.

What I have done is a workaround - an end-run around the problem. It is not a solution, and should not be regarded as such. It is something that needs addressing.

Photo O.

Does anyone have any update on a solution to this problem?

Jay

Thanks for the messages. Currently there aren't any solutions in relation to what you're experiencing with the sync icons in Explorer.

Have you tried contacting the support team from the Dropbox account which you're seeing from Explorer.

Photo O.

I will go with the multi-folder workaround for now, and contact the support team in the near future

Thanks