"Dropbox needs to change permissions" message on startup

Hi @Rachel R.2,

Can you try following commands in terminal:

sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
chmod -R u+rw "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"

Will be asked for your password (sudo).

Hope this helps.

All comments

Hey there @Rachel R.2,

Welcome to the Dropbox Community! Let's see what we can find here.

As a first step, could you let me know if you get a hyperlink when you see the error message pop up? If you do, could you please click on it and post the log that you get?

Thanks in advance!

Hi, Lusil!

No, there is no link, just the location of my desktop Dropbox folder. If you tell me how to add a screenshot, I can do that.

If you can attach a screenshot in your reply, that would be very helpful!

Thanks in advance, @Rachel R.2!

I would be happy to if you would tell me how to do that!

Screen Shot 2019-10-07 at 8.43.15 AM.png

(If that worked, I figured it out. )

Hi @Rachel R.2,

Can you try following commands in terminal:

sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"
chmod -R u+rw "/Users/$USER/Dropbox"

Will be asked for your password (sudo).

Hope this helps.

All at once or one at a time?

Line by line. Every line is one command.

Done--and thank you! I restarted, and it didn't ask for my password, so hopefully the problem is now solved.

I am having the same issue, but unrelated to restarts. About every week, Dropbox presents the message like in Rachel's screenshot, and starts synching 15K+ files, even though none of them changed. It takes several days and completely kills my buttery.

I have run the following command and do not have any hyperlinks:

find "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)" -type l -exec ls -lah {} \;

I've also applied the instructions above. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Julia

@mjulia wrote:
...
I've also applied the instructions above. Any other ideas?
...

Hi @mjulia,

Is everything above passed without errors? Did you change the paths? In your case they are little bit different - the folder name differs!

Can you pass exact result in the terminal after execution (in a code block </>) - together commands and the returns, if any?

Yes, I did change the paths.

[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> sudo chflags -R noschg "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
Password:
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> sudo chflags -R nouchg "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> sudo chown -R "$USER" "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> chmod -R u+rw "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"
[~/Documents/D/GitRepositories/www]> ls -al /Users/mjulia/Dropbox\ $Personal$/
total 2784
drwx------@ 17 mjulia staff 544 5 Dec 00:11 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 70 mjulia staff 2240 3 Jan 09:50 ..

(the rest of the directories are omitted)

Your subscription is a Business one! Did you try the same commands for the Business folder too, not only to the private one? :thinking: The issue could comes from there.

I believe that my Busness subscription is no longer active. Or at least I do not have that folder on my computer any more. After further inspection, I do have another Dropbox folder that is linked to that one. Maybe that causes some issues?

[~]> ls -al Dropbox*
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 mjulia staff 32 19 Feb 2016 Dropbox -> /Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)

Dropbox (Personal):
total 2784
drwx------@ 17 mjulia staff 544 5 Dec 00:11 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 70 mjulia staff 2240 3 Jan 09:50 ..

What's the result from:

cat ~/.dropbox/info.json; echo

:thinking:

{"personal": {"path": "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)", "host": 48016340672, "is_team": false, "subscription_type": "Pro"}}

Hmm... interesting...

Let's try different possibilities. First, if and what kind of links you have inside Dropbox:

ls -alRP "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)" | grep " -> "

If there is some result, pointing path have to be inside your Dropbox folder, otherwise could be the problem. Next, to remove potentially quarantine for part(s), try following:

xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"

Hope some of the above commands will solve the issue.

No links..

[~]> ls -alRP "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)" | grep " -> "
[~]> xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine "/Users/mjulia/Dropbox (Personal)"

I'm up to here, haven't more suggestions, currently. Let's hope someone else will give some additional possibilities, which work better for you.

Walter

Hi @mjulia; I hope this finds you well!

As you haven't had any success on this so far, at this point, I'd suggest a clean, advanced re-install.

Give this a go when you get the chance and let us know how it goes!

@Здравко: We haven't talked for a while now; happy new Year and thanks for your active contributions on our Community - we all appreciate your efforts!

Hi @Walter, :slight_smile:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! for you too. :upside_down:

Success for You and the team!

I'm having this issue and have tried the offered solutions with no success.

Fredrick L.1

For months, each time I launched Path Finder the first time after a reboot, I'd get the Dropbox "permissions" message once, sometimes twice (immediately after supplying my Mac password for the first message).

I'm on Catalina.

This seems to have fixed it for me.

Thank you!

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, @frederick L.1 - glad to hear that you were able to resolve your concern.

@JosefC, could you let me know if you've checked for any computer updates that you have pending?

Could you also confirm if you're running the latest stable version of the desktop app (101.4.434)?

Keep us posted!

Hi,

Confirmed - running latest stable DB and have no updates pending.

The situation is ongoing.

I am loathe to do a full removal and re-installation, mostly because I'm uncertain about the consequences on my files/links.

Did the full pro reinstall. We'll see whether it fixed the issue...

OK, I'm officially losing my mind.

Followed all the instructions for the "advanced reinstall" to the letter.

After a few hours all seemed well, thousands of files synced (though there was actually nothing changed on the cloud or locally).

Shut down.

This morning, my team asked me to check files and I couldn't find them. No DB syncing taking place.

No icon in the top menu. No Dropbox app in the application folder.

I have now done a second "advanced reinstall." 150000+ files are now "syncing" again. And there is STILL no Dropbox APP in my Applications folder!

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-integrations/Dropbox-wont-open-at-all-Mac/td-p/370920/page/2

I'm on my 3rd reinstall now, also having followed instructions for further Terminal commands here:

I'm also experiencing the issue mentioned in that thread:

And when I go to eject the Dropbox Installer in finder before quitting dropbox from my top menu, I am unable to eject it and get The disk "Dropbox Installer" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it, and then saying cancel or force eject. So I cancel, and quit Dropbox from the top menu, and I am able to properly eject the Dropbox Installer. Leaving me with no way to open that version of dropbox because it's not actually installed!

DROPBOX is still not installed as an APP in my applications folder.

Thanks for getting back to me, @JosefC.

Was the desktop app installed with admin privilegdes?

Have you also tried rebooting the computer?