Child Item

My Dropbox app is stuck syncing files on Windows 11 after an advanced reinstall.

Device

Desktop PC
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)

Windows 11 Pro
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)

237.4.5655

My desktop app has been stuck syncing for about a week. We ran out of space on our work Dropbox network (80TB used). I freed up around 20TB of space and all PC's on the network apart from mine successfully (after some time) synced the changes. Mine however was stuck at 5.5 million files syncing. I left it to do its thing for several days with no change.

So I followed the "advanced reinstall" instructions on this page https://help.dropbox.com/installs/advanced-reinstall. The reinstall was successful and it seemed as though things were moving again. However for the last few days I've been stuck with between 12,000 and 16,000 files syncing. The number gradually goes up day to day. I'm working on Dropbox still, as are my colleagues so this may be why. I have to manually download my colleagues files and place them where they should be syncing before using them.

When I hover my mouse over the DB icon in the system tray it says its downloading the 16k files, uploading around 40 files. But very little download up upload bandwidth is actually being used. I have a gigabit connection so I don't believe its actually doing much at all on the network.

How can I fix this? We have around 60TB of files on our DB network and I have around 500GB of that synced at any given time.

Thanks for any assistance!

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Comments

Nancy

Welcome to our Community, @PebbleNick! Thanks for your post.

Can you right-click on your Dropbox folder directly and go to its Properties? I’d like you to confirm the number of files that are currently saved within.

I’m mostly asking because having more than 300k files stored within the Dropbox folder can cause performance issues to the desktop app. So, if you have a significantly larger number of files saved there at the moment, this could explain the issue you’re having. Of course, this is only a limitation that applies to the desktop app and not the Dropbox website.

Let me know what you find, and we’ll go from there.

PebbleNick

Definitely more than 300k files. We deal with millions of files for video production/animation. I have the properties up now and its past 1 million with about 50TB still to go through. So I'd guess a very large amount in total basically.

We've been using Dropbox for years now though with this number of files and not had an issue this disruptive before.

EDIT: 7.8 million files if the exact number is important 🙂

PebbleNick

I looked at the 300k files article you linked. Its saying that having more the 300k files synced locally is bad for performance. I cant tell how many I have synced exactly. But just to be clear I don't have our entire 60TB 7.8 million file network synced.

Also my machine is pretty high spec which the article points out makes a difference.

Jay

Hi @PebbleNick, thanks for the details. In order to look into this matter in more detail, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate further.

Jasper B.3

I'm in the same scenario here, although on a slightly smaller scale (only 4TB, but 880Gb synced).

I've been trying to selective sync myself back to zero folders synced, but it won't even apply those settings anymore so i've been advised to reinstall the software. Five straight days of system crashes due to dropbox log files filling up my boot drive and causing system instability, and no end to the sync in sight. It's really affecting my business at the moment.

Jay

HI @Jasper B.3, could you let us know what you mean when the settings aren't being applied when using selective sync?

Are you getting an error message in the Dropbox desktop application?

Jasper B.3

Sure. I unselected every folder in selective sync to get beneath the 300K limit as advised, but the folders are not being removed. They are unticked in the sync settings, but they remain on the drive.

Walter

Can you try it out in smaller batches or even with a relatively small folder as a test @Jasper B.3?

Jasper B.3

I have already been monitoring the program to stop it crashing for over five days (if I don't delete dropbox logs and empty trash every 30 minutes or so, either dropbox or my computer will crash). It's like trying to stop a leaking boat from sinking. At this point I'm going to cut my losses and uninstall and just hope my 3.2TB of data is intact.

To be clear, the 100's of GB's of log files being created in

C: \Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Dropbox\logs\1

every few hours are bringing my system to a halt, causing programs to corrupt save files, and I can't afford any more downtime to debug dropbox and risk the stability of a 14 year project.

Could you advise what will happen if I uninstall at this point?

Hannah

Hey @Jasper B.3, thanks for the additional info here.

Actually, since the end goal is to reduce the folders in your Dropbox folder, can you try our advanced reinstall process, if you haven't already and let us know how it goes?

Jasper B.3

You're welcome for the info. Glad to have spent the week testing for you!

Could you tell me why I would want to do this complex seeming 'advanced reinstall', vs a regular uninstall then erase of the dropbox folder followed by reinstall?

I'm not willing to risk selective sync conflicts as that has caused huge issues in the past, and it sounds like this process could end up causing them.

This is only making things more confusing. The goal is not to reduce folders, that was what support advised me to do because sync has been stuck for days. The goal is to get sync working again.

BuddyJames

We are having the same issue in our studio. Trying to setup a new department, new systems, consolidate files. Re-installed as instructed. Tried to re-sync a reasonable number of files - endless sync. More than enough space on the new drives.

Hannah

I understand where you're coming from @Jasper B.3, and I deeply appreciate your patience throughout troubleshooting.

Running an advanced reinstall will reset cached settings and configuration, which essentially ensure a fresh start.

Assuming you want to give it a try, before you proceed, we'd recommend the following:

Taking a screenshot of which folders you haven't allowed to sync to your desktop in the selective sync settings.
Double-check the de-selected folders on your device to see which ones still appear before your attempts to de-select folders.

Rest assured that I completely understand your concerns about the selective sync conflicts and ideally, I'd recommend having everything sync anew by utilizing selective sync upon installation (choosing specific folders to sync).

In the meantime, if you haven't already, please also ensure that there's no interference with your security or firewall software.

Aside from that, I can see that you've already tried contacting our support team, so I went ahead and added an internal note into your ticket with a summary of our discussion so far.

Hannah

Sorry to see that you're also having issues with your syncing, @BuddyJames.

Can you let us know which version of the Dropbox app you're using, what the exact sync status is when hovering over the Dropbox icon and what your computer's OS and version is?

Thanks.

Jasper B.3

Thanks. I'm waiting three more days for a new SSD I bought to be delivered to backup my local dropbox folder before erasing it. This will have taken at least two weeks without access to sync, during which I've had to put my business on hold.

I haven't heard anything from Support but they've advised me to reinstall. Which I'm not going to do until I can at least backup what I have synced in case of conflicts that could occur when trying to get sync working again. In the meantime it would be great to get some kind of confirmation that you could look into the way the software generates log files. In no circumstances should dropbox be silently filling your boot drive with 100's of GB's of hidden log files per day. It shold handle such situations more gracefully, instead of crashing a user's entire system. Support told me it was "expected behaviour" due to the amount of files I had. That is a shockingly poor stance to take.

Dell_Dropbox

@Jasper B.3 Hey there, just circling back after the holiday weekend to update you that your case is actively being looked into. The details are beyond the scope of something I can personally help out with here in a public forum but I wanted to provide some reassurance that you have not been forgotten. Thank you for the remarkable patience you've shown thusfar.

Jasper B.3

Thanks. If it's of any use, the update that rolled out today with the new folder icons has not changed the situation besided settling on a different number of files stuck syncing. The log files are still piling up so fast that I've got to quit the program at startup or it'll crash my system within an hour or so.

Hannah

Hey jasper, thanks for the update and the feedback here. I'll make sure to pass your comments along to our team.

Jasper B.3

I reinstalled the software having erased my local folder. The sync was successful. I had about 100K files locally via selective sync. I then added a folder with 150K files (a backup of my current project), and the app became stuck again. Nothing will fix it again and my system and any open apps keep crashing again because the log files being generated by dropbox are filling the C: drive once again. This is shockingly poor user experience. I've had weeks of downtime due to this issue now. What is being done to mitigate the logfile creation issue? I've had no assurances that you're even working on a fix.

Dell_Dropbox

@Jasper B.3 It sounds like the closer you edge towards the 300k limit its introducing a some friction. You should have a message from Dropbox in your email as support continues to work on this.