Application Affected
Dropbox Desktop Windows 10
Device
Windows 10 on Xeon E5
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 10.0.18363.1256
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
237.4.5655
Question or Issue
Dropbox for Windows has this weird habit of declaring some files unsyncable. Despite them being valid Windows (and Linux) filenames, and despite them normally syncing, some just refuse. In this case, ROMÂNIA.pdf (that is capital A with circumflex, aka ACIRC, or 196 ASCII as far as I can tell).
So, it claims to have a sync issue. When the help pops up, it claims that invalid characters can't be in the name (they aren't), and I went through the list. It's a standard file character ban. Slashes, colon, pipe, start, etc. The page indicates nothing in the file name.
Eventually, I decided it's easier to just contact the person with the file and obtain the permission to just rename it (common use file), which I did, ROMÂNIA.pdf got renamed to "ROMANIA.pdf". This synced successfully (file has green check).
HOWEVER. The error stays. When the attached screen is open, it flickers to the animated rectangle and back, as if it is trying to sync the file. It can't. Not when the file was there, not when it's gone.
When trying to "view file" it just opens "My computer" before and after the rename, it was never helpful, I don't know why.
There is no button to ignore or dismiss the error and it's stuck.
This is a high availability system, no I did not restart or update the system. Dropbox updates as complained. A quick Google shows that 237.4.5655 is stable release from Nov 2025. So that works.
Filesystem path to the file is 105 characters long, plus a backslash and the file name 117. So that's not it. There are no disk errors. I attempted to recreate the file where it was, and in lower and upper case, deleted, moved it and it syncs just fine. Whatever it was, it wasn't the name, despite the error message.
My best guess, seeing how the error is stuck and the path doesn't open is that maybe the file was named something like ROMÂNIA/.pdf or something illegal, that threw an error, and when corrected it stuck somehow. Basically, the bug being the error message not the file.
So, any ideas?
- Why the sync not happening?
- Why is the "view file" unhelpful?
- Why is the error not going away?
