apraetor Super User Alumni

Could he be hitting different servers depending on whether he's using the web UI or the Dropbox sync client? I wonder whether his ISP has a peering issue, maybe they're under-provisioned for some routes. [This thread is now closed. If you have a similar or new question, you can ask here]

This behavior can be expected any time a file stored in Dropbox is locked for exclusive access. What kinds of files is it getting stuck on? I've encountered behavior similar to what you describe, when I attempted to store an Eclipse software project inside of Dropbox. Any time the project was open Eclipse would lock access…

@tomboates Thanks for the great explanation of what's going on here. It's correct that attempting to drag-and-drop a cloud-generated preview of your image is not the same thing as the original image. This is true for most file formats, to my understanding: if you're routinely dragging the preview image into Photoshop, etc.…

Just FYI, a reboot won't clear a file lock; try right-clicking and "Get Info" on the files. Are they locked?

It's running in a virtual machine with no internet access, only virtual lan access to the host (i.e. no NAT is provided at all). The host is running PuTTY with dynamic tunneling. The VM uses the host's lan ip as the SOCKS5 proxy server address.

I realize it isn't working for you. But since it is working generally, this is something that is going to require investigation into the personal details of your setup to identify the root cause. That is why I suggested submitting a support request to Dropbox.

@"xsoft" Hey, sorry for the delay -- Dropbox just pushed a new update to my client last night. I wanted to confirm that SOCKS5 via PuTTY SSH do update properly. My sandbox client successfully updated from 34.3.19 to 35.3.15. If you are still having issues with SOCKS5 please fill out a support request here.

Sorry for the delay, @"xsoft"; I have a copy of Dropbox running through a PuTTY SSH tunnel with dynamic tunnelling enabled, but as there has not been another update yet I cannot verify it updated. However, as a work-around, you can always download a full version (from: Help Center) of the Dropbox installer instead of the…

Thank you. I'm going to try replicating this issue tonight. Do you have any firewall logging enabled? I am curious to determine whether: * attempts to connect are being made outside the SOCKS tunnel and are being blocked by your local firewall, or * attempts to connect are going through the SOCKS tunnel and being…

Right, but if the global SOCKS setting lets it successfully update then that is useful information. It means the Dropbox updater is reading settings from the wrong location. On the other hand, if the global setting doesn't allow it to update successfully, then the Dropbox updater isn't reading proxy settings at all.…

Ok, so you're taking advantage of SSH providing SOCKS5 support/transport. From the fact you are using PuTTY, I assume you're using Windows. I realize you don't use IE, but the proxy settings accessible through IE are the same as in Control Panel -> Networking. Windows software, such as other browsers, etc, can use that…

Just to clarify, you have the Dropbox client properly configured to use a SOCKS proxy, and it syncs properly.. but the client fails to automatically update because the internal updater is ignoring the Dropbox client's SOCKS proxy setting? Have you also configured Windows itself to properly use the SOCKS proxy? I wonder if…

Years? Nah. Given a simple workflow of "open PDF, print PDF" Automator can do thousands of PDFs an hour. But it sounds like your issue isn't that the PDFs don't open in Dropbox's web UI, but that you want their web UI to use Chrome's renderer, which adds an attack point which Dropbox cannot control or patch. Dropbox likely…

@"jaidgossamer" Anytime! You mentioned that sometimes you receive an error when PDF previews aren't displayed. If it's the "too big to preview" message then you might want to try Adobe's PDF Optimizer, as there's an 80 mb file size limit for Dropbox's preview. You might also try printing one of your troublesome PDFs on…

@"jaidgossamer" I assumed that since Google Chrome was your preferred PDF viewer you would want to use it globally. Your last post said that my work-around "doesn't work in Mac OS X", which is untrue. It didn't include details of your use-case.

Actually, it DOES work on OS X, but you need to change the PDF handler from Adobe to Google Chrome. Follow these instructions. Or, do this (same thing): * Find a PDF file in Finder * Right-click (control+click) the PDF * Select "Get Info" * Under the "Opens With" section select "Google Chrome" * Click "Change All..." *…

What happens if you use the "Open" option on the PDFs instead? That should cause them to open with your computer's registered PDF handler, instead of Dropbox's viewer. By going to Settings (on Windows 10) and setting my default PDF viewer for Windows to Chrome, and then using "Open" on dropbox.com, I was able to get my PDF…

Maybe, but discussions of the extent to which our data is private, and the policies by which Dropbox operates, belong in the light of day, not in a private support thread. If we have the conversation here, then if another user has an issue in future the answer is already "on the record" after a fashion. If the conversation…

Sorry, that was a convoluted question I asked. All I was really asking was "Does Dropbox pre-emptively scan customer content for copyright matches?" I'm betting that won't require personal account information, unless you specifically target certain customers based on demographics or some other factor?