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Clangdon's avatar
Clangdon
New member | Level 2
7 years ago

Unable to open files synced to computer

Hi -  I've been using dropbox for a few  months now and it has been aweseome -  I've got a distributed team of 10 people working across the country - and we've been sharing files on Dropbox witho...
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  • Norah's avatar
    Norah
    7 years ago
     
    Hi Clangdon, I’m sorry to hear you are still experiencing this issue and thank you for the additional information.
     
    Try quitting the Dropbox application by using the steps below:
     
    • Click the Dropbox icon in your system tray (Windows) or menu bar (Mac/Linux)
    • Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select "Quit Dropbox"
     
    You may want to check other applications or components of your Operating System that could be causing this. If the issue persists when Dropbox is completely closed, this suggests that the cause is related to something outside of the Dropbox application.
     
    Let me know how it goes!
Norah's avatar
Norah
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
 
Hi Clangdon, I’m sorry to hear you are still experiencing this issue and thank you for the additional information.
 
Try quitting the Dropbox application by using the steps below:
 
  • Click the Dropbox icon in your system tray (Windows) or menu bar (Mac/Linux)
  • Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select "Quit Dropbox"
 
You may want to check other applications or components of your Operating System that could be causing this. If the issue persists when Dropbox is completely closed, this suggests that the cause is related to something outside of the Dropbox application.
 
Let me know how it goes!
Norah's avatar
Norah
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
7 years ago
 
Hey Clangdon, hope you're doing great!
 
Just checking back with you, have you tried quiting Dropbox app following the steps provided?
 
Additionally, I ran a small search on my end and I was able to locate your open request on our system which is being handled by a higher level of Support. 
 
In case you have any further inquiries, let me know here and I'll check back with you.
 
Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
  • kajakiem's avatar
    kajakiem
    Explorer | Level 3
    6 years ago

    Hello, 

    I actually have same problem as Clangdon described. I tried quitting Dropbox, it does not help. When I download files from Dropbox - then I can open them and they look just fine. The problem is with those that are syncornized. I can not Preview any of them, those that I worked on 4 days ago are working after opening them, but older ones ar enot. It looks like synchronizing is damaging files? This is the message window I get: 

    • Josekun's avatar
      Josekun
      Explorer | Level 4
      5 years ago

      Why does Dropbox says SOLVED. It is NOT solved. It keeps happening. LIARS

      A company you can't trust. 

      • aerouser's avatar
        aerouser
        Explorer | Level 3
        5 years ago

        For anyone who makes it to the end of this thread and is still stuck, here is what I did to fix this problem on Mac.

         

        In my case this seems to be related to the "Smart Sync" feature being partially active, even though I did not turn it on and it clearly stated in the Dropbox app that Smart Sync was turned off.

         

        Even though I did not turn it on, Smart Sync was creating empty files with the same names as my real files instead of actually downloading them. When you double-click on these files Dropbox is supposed to understand what they are, and then automatically download, or "Smart Syncs", the file from the server. However, since Smart Sync was not actually turned on it gets all confused and just sees them as corrupted files.

         

        To fix this I had to:

        1) Turn Smart Sync on - This required me to allow it in the Mac security center and then reboot my system for some reason

        2) Change all of my folders from "Smart Sync" to local by right clicking on them and changing the smart sync setting

         

        This seems to be working now and I can use preview to look at images etc. Hopefully it works for you and Dropbox can track down where this bug is ultimately coming from.

         

         

    • kajakiem's avatar
      kajakiem
      Explorer | Level 3
      6 years ago

      Also, while synchronizing some files got "._" in the middle of them. Screen Shot 2019-10-25 at 11.29.19.pngScreen Shot 2019-10-25 at 11.29.19.png

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