Child Item

Logged out of the Dropbox app and back in and now I have a 'Dropbox (old)' and a 'Dropbox' folder

Application Affected
Synching files

Device
PC

Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 11

Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
Windows Desktop

Question or Issue
Had a funny problem with the Windows Explorer status icons not all being corrected, and saw a recommended to "simply" sign out of Dropbox and sign back in. Simple enough. Which I did.

I then got a pop up asking me (telling me really) to rename my Dropbox folder. I said OK, and I now have a Dropbox and Dropbox (old) in the User directory. All of my files are in (old). None are in new. Every link on my PC to my old files is now of course broken. I paused syncing because I am worried Dropbox is going to try and create an entirely new copy of all of my files in the new Dropbox folder.

Does anyone know what it going on here? And how to put things back to they way they were before? Why on earth would a logout/login totally reorganize all of my files???

I'm kind of dead in the water right now so any help would be greatly appreciated. Dropbox support seems to be non-existent.

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Comments

Hannah

Hey @edp4, thanks for joining the Dropbox Community.

This seems to have happened after you chose to rename your Dropbox folder.

What is currently the location of the new Dropbox folder that was created? Is it in the same drive as your original one?

Let me know and we'll go from there.

edp4

Interestingly I had no choice. There was a pop after I re-logged forced me to do so. I did not choose to. The old path was C:\Users\<my name\<company name> Dropbox. This was renamed to C:\Users\<my name\<company name> Dropbox (old). And now there is an empty folder C:\Users\<my name\<company name> Dropbox. Yes they are in the exact same folder C:\Users\<my name and the exact same drive of course.

Hannah

I see, thanks for providing this info, @edp4.

Since syncing is currently paused, I'd suggest moving only the contents of the "Dropbox (old)" folder to the newly created Dropbox folder.

Once the move is complete and only then, you can unpause syncing and the app should only index and check for changes.

Keep me posted on how it goes.

edp4

Ok so Dropbox support thinks that somehow the fact that I have a personal box and work box that, since they were linked (whatever that means) when I logged out, Dropbox "inadvertently" (i.e. a bug) decided to "rename" my work box folder to the same name as it was before and change the original to (old). All this makes zero sense to me.

The fix in process was to go into Prefs -> Accounts, hold the Alt key, an reset folder locations. Interestingly they did not instruct me to delete the newly created empty box and rename the old one back. When I asked they said "oh good idea" lol. So in short I killed Dropbox, deleted the new box, renamed the old one back to it's original name, restarted Dropbox, and did the Alt -> reset folder locations.

It is now re-indexing. No idea if this is really fixed yet or not. Reindexing takes hours or days. So tomorrow morning it's either fine or totally screwed up.

Total waste of a complete half day of my time as I am trying to close out our fiscal year on Dec 30th. Seems every time someone at our company touches Dropbox it's a mess. Might be time to move on...

edp4

Update. Re-indexing made zero progress overnight. Right clicking Dropbox in the system tray no longer works. Dropbox was hung Tech support had me kill Dropbox (then they claim to have killed it on my PC somehow as well) and reboot my PC . Dropbox came alive after the reboot, asked me to login, and now back to the exact same screen that wants to rename my existing Dropbox folder to (old). Which in theory will cause an entire duplication of all of my locally stored files. Screenshot is the popup I get.

Finally got tech support to do a screen share. Seems to be a bug - but he cant get hold of anyone in engineering.

Moral of the story is - any time I log out of Dropbox and back in again it will create an entirely new Dropbox folder on my PC and try to fill it up with all the same files that I keep locally on my PC.

This may be the end of Dropbox for me.

czajin

I encountered similar problem. I chose "choose another location" then Dropbox App for Windows keep logging me out.

Megan

Hey @edp4, thanks for the updates!

I definitely see where you're coming from, and how important it is to get back syncing your work.

With that being said I was able to locate your active ticket on our system. It seems your case has been escalated to our specialized agents, therefore I believe it's best to wait for their instructions before moving further.

I deeply appreciate your patience while our team is working to resolve this. Hang tight, and they'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you so much!

Megan

Hi there, @czajin!

Did you manage to resolve this, or is it an ongoing issue? What is your OS, and have you tried any troubleshooting steps on your end?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!

aloom127

This same problem came up for me this week, and I am worried it will result in the loss of some really valuable files. Have you found a solution to this issue?

Hannah

Sorry to hear that, @aloom127.

Are you still having this issue?

If so, would you mind sharing some more info? For example, what exact steps did you follow to get to where you are?

Any screenshots better explaining the issue, would also be very welcome.

Thanks!

aloom127

At some point in the past few weeks, I was automatically logged out of my Dropbox account. When prompted to log back in, the app setup process began as if the Dropbox app was not already installed on my system. I tried force quitting the app and restarting my computer, but this didn't solve the issue.

I tried following the prompts. I was presented with a message stating that I already had a Dropbox folder set up on my machine. The menu didn't provide me with the option to use the existing Dropbox folder. Instead, it only offered that I rename my original folder something else, or choose a different location (same menu the OP screenshotted above).

Ultimately I uninstalled Dropbox causing my existing indexed folder to become hidden. When I reinstalled Dropbox, it created a new Dropbox Folder on my main boot (C:) drive (my original folder stayed hidden on my larger (D:) drive). When Dropbox was installed, I tried re-assigning the new Dropbox folder to my (D:) drive, but the app would immediately crash, I assume because it saw the other Dropbox folder there.

Ultimately I resorted to renaming the original folder "Dropbox (old)" and allowing the Dropbox app to create a new Dropbox folder on the same drive. My Dropbox (old) folder contains 1.25 TB of data, 522GB of which is on my local disk. There are 71,000 files and 5,900 folders. I'm wary of the process of re-indexing this data to the new Dropbox folder.

It should be noted that, unlike OP, I'm not being repeatedly logged out. My primary concern is the possibility that some of my files on my Dropbox (old) folder haven't been uploaded and synced, and will be lost if I allow the new Dropbox folder to overwrite it. Why can't I simply reconnect my existing Dropbox folder to my online account? Why does the app not allow for this? This is the first time something like this has happened. Dropbox has worked really well for me up until this point. But this breakdown in functionality feels bordering on catastrophic, especially if I were in the middle of a project (thankfully I am not). If there's not a clear way to proceed, I will probably just move my data to my GDrive account and call it quits with DB.

Jay

Hi @aloom127, you can reconnect an existing Dropbox folder by performing an advanced reinstallation of the Dropbox desktop application, and following the last steps in this article to link your old Dropbox folder

ERCH

This happened to me as well, and now continues to be problematic. Dropbox, this is an ultimate failure for the system. Tech support helped me a little, but it was a hack solution. Completely unacceptable especially for those of us paying a significant fee for the service.

mikes103

I've had this issue for a few weeks now. It is STAGGERING how unbelievably trash the Dropbox setup is.

I log in, specify what files I want synced, and I immediately get logged out. It then reboots the app, and tells me to rename the Dropbox folder (as if it's a new setup). This loops forever.

How this kind of error is allowed by an organization as big as Dropbox, I will never understand.

Rich

mikes103 wrote:
How this kind of error is allowed by an organization as big as Dropbox, I will never understand.

If this was a widespread issue caused by an error in the application, then these forums would be filled with A LOT more people reporting the issue. Typically, something like this is more likely to be a problem with the specific installation or something similar, and not an indicator of a widespread issue.

mikes103 wrote:
It then reboots the app, and tells me to rename the Dropbox folder (as if it's a new setup). This loops forever.

Have you tried an advanced reinstall, as Jay suggested above?