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My Windows 11 File Explorer freezes, when I take an action on my Dropbox files.

Since the upgrade of my computer on mid august, I suffer an unbearable bug with dropbox.

Note that only the dropbox folder is making issues ; all options work well on the website, and that problme occurs ONLY while I'm in dropbox folder.

The issue
When I double-click on a subfolder, when I right-click on a file (in order to share it as a link for example) or when I replace a file (like copy/paste a new version), 90% of the time this file explorer window freezes.

If I let it runs, it may or may not eventually make the action after 1 to 10 minuts.

If, during this time, I open a new file explorer window and navigate into it until I reach Dropbox, the exact same problem occurs on this second window.

That makes Dropbox totally unusable to me, so I consider switching to google drive instead of Dropbox after many loyal years. My workflow is badly and painly handicaped by this bug.

I tried to uninstall and reinstall dropbox, to move it from a Sata SSD to an NVME SSD (and back), to update it, update windows, update nvidia drivers. I even udpated my bios.

I also tried to disable my firewall.

Nothing works.

I readed many other users topics encountering the exact or almost same issue.

I tried all suggested solutions in those posts i readed, but nothing worked for me.

I'm about to give up, but maybe will you have an idea to fix this. Last chance.

Hardware infos
Application Affected : Dropbox
Device : PC (Asrock Z890 wifi legend, Core ultra 7 265K, 48Go DDR5, RTX 4070)
Operating System/Browser : Windows 11 24H2 (on NVME SSD) - Firefox.
Dropbox Version : Dropbox Plus (23% of 2TB), v236.4.5918.

PS : sorry for the approximative english, not native.

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Picturapoesis

I also changed then removed my tiers service copy software (terracopy and ultracopy), just in case, but that didn't solve the problem either.

Nancy

Welcome to our forum, @Picturapoesis! Thanks for posting here and I’m sorry to hear about this.

Can you send me a few more details on the computer upgrade you mention at the beginning of your post? Was it an OS upgrade, or did you also have the Dropbox for Windows update around the time the issue started?

Have you already tried quitting the Dropbox app? If not, can you please do that and let me know if the behavior persists, even when the Dropbox app isn’t running?

We’ll go from there.

Picturapoesis

Computer upgrade was hardware. It's kind of a whole new computer. New fresh install of windows 11.

I've tried quitting the dropbox app, indeed.

The problme still seems to occur (I did experience it once or two while testing to close dropbox). However, it occurs ONLY on dropbox folder and its subfolder. Even when I moved it from a SSD to another, the problem occurs ONLY on this folder.

Picturapoesis

Picturapoesis

new test :
So, even if Dropbox is closed, the problem still occurs (a right click on any file into the dropbox folder freezes the windows for several minuts).
BUT if dropbox is completely uninstalled (not just closed), the problem vanishes!
That seems to prove that dropbox is the problem, even though it's closed.

Nancy

Thanks for all the details you’ve shared with me, @Picturapoesis. They really help.

I’ve gone ahead and logged you a ticket in the meantime, since we’ll need to investigate this further. Please open the inbox of your email address and reply back to my message, when you get the chance.

Picturapoesis

Please note that I've got two third party softwares replacing my taskbar/startmenu (Startallback and Start11).

Since Startallback also replace my right click contextual menus, I though it may interferate in some ways with dropbox. However, I tried to disactivate it and use the usual contextual menu of windows 11, and problem occurs anyway. I though it may be an info for your team, though.

Nancy

Thanks for this, @Picturapoesis! I can see that you’ve also updated your support ticket, so our specialized team will see the additional details you’ve shared.

russellbridge

Hi. Did this ever get resolved? I'm having the same issue

Picturapoesis

Hello Russel,
Yes !
A pretty simple solution fixed totally the mess, at least for me :
They asked me to uninstall it totally once more, then install it again from fresh (and after a reboot), and now for the important part : UNCHECK the windows update part.
Here's a copy of their message :

As a first step, I'd like you to opt out of the Windows update to see if that fixes the issue.

To opt out of the update:
Log out of the Dropbox desktop app.

Log back into the Dropbox desktop app.
Click Open Dropbox.
Make your selections on the onboarding screens.
When the setup is finished, click Advanced settings from the final screen.
Check the Opt out checkboxunder Dropbox for Windows updates.

Against all odds, it was enough to fix the whole curse and I instantly stopped eating my shoes and losing my hair.
Hopefully it will work for you too.

Crowley

you save me big time. I wish you have every good things in the world

russellbridge

Thanks Picturaposis - that worked perfectly for me too. Bit scary when Dropbox decided to re-dowload about 1Tb worth of data, but it seems to have done it all perfectly after renaming the old Dropbox folder 'Dropbox Old' (which I can now delete).
Thanks
Russ