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Forum Discussion
Dropbox keeps trying to download and sync files set to online only
I had this same issue with a particular folder when I first set up my new Windows 10 laptop, but closing and restarting Dropbox seemed to fix it. (Derp.) Today it randomly started trying to downl...
Fascinating. I stumbled on this because I am also running into this issue.
This issue is hyper-annoying and this issue melts away a lot of the value that I get from using dropbox.
It persistently downloads things that I keep setting back to online-only.
I can't say I've paid enough attention to detect whether or not Fridays are a contributing pattern on my end, but it is particularly obnoxious today.
It does seem to want to gravitate toward audio files as the files it tries to download even though I want them set to online only.
I've been experiencing this trouble on both my Mac OSX machine and my Windows 10 machine.
It's possible there are different reasons I experience it on one OS versus the other, that is not ruled out.
I will keep monitoring for clues, and I'll update you if I make any headwind on solving this issue.
Anybody who works at Dropbox have any ideas for us?
I'm suspicious that something on my system is periodically "indexing" in a way that tries to open up files that in turn causes smart sync to begin downloading. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot finding a process that is doing that behavior?
Good luck!
Sanchez
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey guys, I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing this.
Rachel L., like Rich said, this is most likely caused by another app/process that’s accessing files in your Dropbox folder in some way. The fact that this happens consistently on the same day of the week, Friday, leads me to think that maybe there is some scheduled task running then. Is there a backup or other utility doing something on Fridays?
thebobalos, thanks for posting. As you mentioned a tendency for this to occur with audio files, I would check for any app that may be accessing/indexing them in the background. Do keep monitoring for clues, and let me know how it goes.
Cheers!
Hey Sanchez , Rachel L. , et al
I have some good news! I believe that I have identified the process that attempts to index these files, thereby initiating Dropbox Smart-Sync to begin downloading them.
The process is called "Ableton Index". It is a normal part of the Ableton software suite and part of its normal operation is to scan and index all the "Places" I have favorited in the Ableton browser. It will "touch" image, video, and audio data in such a way that it causes Dropbox Smart-Sync to initiate on-demand downloads. The solution is not to have any Dropbox-daemon-managed locations in your Ableton "Places" list. Furthermore, a Dropbox-daemon-managed location cannot be a subfolder of a folder in the Ableton "Places" List.
For tech-savvy posterity, I'll take a moment to illuminate the methodology I used to identify the meddlesome process. These instructions will only apply to Mac OSX users. They probably translate easily to Linux, but Windows users will need to do more research to identify analogous tools.
The idea is to run a tool in your terminal that tracks and logs file access. You'll have to start that running and then wait for the undesired smart-sync downloads to begin. You're basically trying to catch the problem red-handed in the act! One such tool on Mac OSX is "opensnoop".
- Open Terminal
- Run `sudo opensnoop -s > opensnoop.log` (this captures the opensnoop output and stores it in a log file)
- Inspect the log file for processes that accessed the file. I recommend using `grep` to search for the specific filepath that you didn't want to download. You'll see a process name (or process ID) and you can use that to identify the process causing the problem.
I hope this helps for the future!
SanchezAs a feature-request (or does this exist already?) -- is there a log-file that the local Dropbox Daemon keeps that would explain every smart-sync decision that Dropbox daemon makes? As an end-user troubleshooting this situation, I would love to have a source of truth for Dropbox's decision-making that could immediately tell me whether or not the Smart-Sync action was "user-initiated" or if it was initiated by a process, and if so, which one.Returning in defeat to my thread...
thebobalos I'm afraid I've never heard of this "Ableton" software (searching for it on my laptop brought up nothing but online search results), so that can't be the cause of my problem. 😞
I've been trying to avoid the issue simply by shutting Dropbox down before it could start acting up on Fridays around 6:35PM, turning it back on after 7PM. This worked...until today. I forgot to turn it off and only realized after 7 that it hadn't acted up! I felt hopeful that maybe a Dropbox or Windows update had resolved the issue. Well...no. It's just delayed now. 😞 Around 8:05PM it started trying (both failing and succeeding) to download the three zipped files I have set to online only. I changed their settings back, and did the one thing I haven't tried yet--created a new folder specifically for the three problem zipped files, made it online only, and excluded it from Windows 10 indexing, since I USED to think that was the cause of the problem. (Apparently, it isn't.) Dropbox settled down...but a few moments later, after I'd made changes to an unrelated file that IS stored locally (did this on my tablet, watched it sync to my laptop), it started trying to download the problem files again. This time I got a notification saying that the file in question was online only and if I wanted to view it (I hadn't been trying to view it!), I had to download it. This despite the fact that it already had downloaded one of the files!
I AGAIN reset them to online only...only to see Dropbox now attempting to download the contents of one of the other, online-only, non-indexed folders it had tried to do in the past. I reset that to online only...and shut Dropbox down again, even though I'm right in the middle of syncing some other files.
I'm so frustrated by this, especially now that I'm not sure WHAT time it'll start acting up (why did it change??), much less when it'll be "safe" to start Dropbox up again, plus, I know for sure that excluding files from indexing won't fix the problem. (Plus I'm kind of creeped out that Dropbox and/or Windows thought I was trying to view a file that I wasn't. Why would it do that?) Windows could very well be to blame, and probably is, but I've thought over and looked into everything I can think of and nothing explains this.
It's Friday again and guess what! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Yep, Dropbox started (and succeeded, with at least one) trying to download the zipped files. I've temporarily paused it to try to avert the issue for now. There's definitely something weird about Fridays.
Sanchez , I don't have any tasks scheduled that I'm aware of (this computer is new as of October 2020 and I've never set up any scheduled tasks), and the only "automatic" backup I have enabled is Dropbox itself. I've looked all over in the Dropbox settings but have no idea what could be causing this or why it targets the same files (though last time, it started trying to download a folder it's never tried before, so maybe if I let it keep at this it'd start trying to download everything?). I don't even know if Windows indexing could be to blame, since two of the folders it occasionally tries to download are both online only AND I've set Windows to not index them. :/ (The zipped files are an exception since they're not in a folder so I can't exempt them from indexing.)
My antivirus runs scheduled scans on Fridays, BUT, it does that at 10PM--not now--plus it was set to scan on SATURDAYS until a couple of weeks ago; only after this issue began did I reset it (for unrelated reasons). So that can't be the cause.
EDIT, incidentally, earlier in the day I was looking at the placeholders for a few files in one of the online-only folders Dropbox often tries to download (it didn't get to today before I paused it); I didn't download anything though I did try searching for a file (didn't work, since Windows hasn't indexed them). I also saved a few new files into that folder, and made them online only. Dropbox did nothing weird at the time.
I didn't think I would have an update for today, since I got tired of waiting for Dropbox to start trying to download stuff, and paused syncing before trying to doze off. But then I started getting a swarm of Windows notifications saying Smart Sync had tried and failed to download 1400-something files, 1500-something files, 200-something files, over and over and over and OVER! It wouldn't stop! All this DESPITE Dropbox being paused! :scream:
The messages kept coming and coming so quickly I couldn't even unpause Dropbox or exit the program. It refused to close! I had to go into the Task Manager and close Dropbox as well as about four other processes that seemed to be related to it (I've never seen all those processes before) before it finally disappeared and the notifications stopped.
How on earth am I getting these weird Smart Sync notifications even with the program paused? Previously, when it started acting up, I'd make the problem files/folders online only again, then pause Dropbox, and it would stop acting up for the day. I thought I'd beat it to the punch today and pause it before it could start acting up--but it tried downloading thousands of files anyway! (And yes--while this was happening, the yellow "pause" icon was still displaying in the task tray.)
That was another new development--previously, it would try downloading one or two files at a time. Now that I paused it first, it was apparently trying to download...everything? Thousands of files.
Looking all over in my computer for anything that's scheduled, even though I never scheduled any sort of processes myself. The fact that Windows started sending me all those notifications even when Dropbox was paused makes me suspect Windows is the culprit though I have NO idea what could be causing it.
Nothing set up in the notifications area of Windows settings.
I finally found something called Task Scheduler by using search. It doesn't show anything that ran today or even in the past week:
Task status
Status of tasks that have started in the following time period: Last 7 days
Summary: 0 total--0 running, 0 succeeded, 0 stopped, 0 failed
So I looked in the listing of active tasks. There are a lot and it doesn't give specific dates/times for when most should run, but I did find one that stood out:
Task name: WarrantyChecker_DeviceScan
Next run time: 12/18/2020 4:55:08 PM
Triggers: At 4:55 PM every Friday of every week, starting 11/6/2020
Location: \Hewlett-Packard\HP Support Assistant
Hm.
Here's the thing--the time is off, plus, November 6 was the one Friday I don't recall anything happening. :/ Plus I had this issue for the Friday preceding 11/6 (10/30).
So...I don't know, and I don't know why HP Support Assistant (much less something called "WarrantyChecker"?) would have anything to do with Dropbox Smart Sync. But that's all I've been able to find.
Anyway, I'm turning Dropbox back on and hoping nothing else weird happens...
