Child Item

Dropbox app won't run on PC which was idle for 4.5 months

Device
Desktop PC B550M PG Riptied Mother Board
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
(Windows 11 Home 64bit 25H2
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
243.4.6956

Question or Issue

Hello,

I just returned from 4.5 months out of country, and upon booting my desktop Win 11 PC, the Dropbox applications refuses to run, so I do not have access on my Desktop to all the files that were modified or newly created over the last 4.5 months.

I have tried toggling off Dropbox app. auto start, than reboot and attempt to start Dropbox manually with no success.

Dropbox is functioning perfectly on the laptop Win 11 PC I have used for the 4.5 months the Desktop was inactive.

How to I get Dropbox to boot on the Desktop PC and assure that the documents modified/created/deleted over the last 4.5 months are updated on the Desktop?

Each PC (laptop and desktop) have their individual Documents folders in Dropbox, so two different Dropbox folders, one for each PC.

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Accepted answers

jsauser11

Thanks for the help everyone. Came back to the Desktop PC after lunch ready to do the uninstall/reinstall, and the Dropbox Icon had decided to show up in the system tray. Don't know if the toggle off of autorun then system reboot then toggle autorun back to ON did the trick, but something worked and now I don't have to uninstall/reinstall the app on the Desktop PC. Yea!!

Please close and mark as solved.

Thanks,

Jeff

All comments

Mark

Have you tried reinstalling the app? Its possible its out of date now and so cannot connect: http://www.dropbox.com/downloading

Hannah

Hey @jsauser11, thanks for posting to our Community!

To be honest, since the Dropbox app hasn't run in such a long time, I would suggest the following steps, to avoid any overwriting of files:

Sign out of the Dropbox desktop app to unlink it from your account
Uninstall the app
Delete the Dropbox folder (if the computer is unlinked, the deletions won't affect the saved files in your account)
Reinstall the app

Let me know how it goes!

jsauser11

Questions on the recommended reinstall process:

Sign out of the dropbox desktop app to unlink it from your account

Note: can't sign out on the desktop PC since the app won't run. Do you mean sign out on my laptop on which the app IS running?

Uninstall the app.

Uninstall it on the Desktop PC or the Laptop PC?

Delete the dropbox folder

Delete it on the Desktop PC or the Laptop PC?

Reinstall the app.

Reinstall on the Desktop PC or the Laptop PC?

Rich

jsauser11 wrote:
Note: can't sign out on the desktop PC since the app won't run.

You can unlink the computer from your Security page. Scroll down the page and you'll find a Devices section. Find the entry for your Desktop PC and click the trash can icon to the right.

jsauser11 wrote:
Uninstall it on the Desktop PC or the Laptop PC?

Desktop.

jsauser11 wrote:
Delete it on the Desktop PC or the Laptop PC?

Desktop. If you have the available disk space, I would rename it to Dropbox_OLD instead of deleting it, just in case. You can delete it if the install goes well.

jsauser11 wrote:
Reinstall on the Desktop PC or the Laptop PC?

Desktop. If the first install doesn't work, do an advanced reinstall.

jsauser11

Please close and mark as solved.

Thanks,

Jeff

Hannah

Happy to hear that, Jeff!

If you need anything else, just give us a shout.

Have a great day!