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Forum Discussion
Deleted folders keep reappearing
I'm hoping someone can help with this problem. I have been using Dropbox for a few years across a number of devices (2 desktop Macs, a laptop, an iPhone and an iPad). This last week, when I try to de...
The web interface should only recreate the folder if a device connected instructs it to.
So one of your devices must not be selectively synced, or has some greater issue.
(1) Check each device to see if the folder is present on the device, and remove it. If it comes back its not that device that ordered it created. If it wont delete then thats the device that cant delete it so orders it recreated. Fix that device.
(2) Failing that, take all devices off line, delete the folder via the web, then bring devices online one by one, and watch for the folder being created, when it is, it was the device you just brought online.
I just had this problem and it turned out that there were some files in a folder, but they couldn't be copied to the windows installation of dropbox because they had illegal filenames in windows. Specifically, they had single quotes and double quotes (at least one of those isn't legal in a file name).
These files were created on the mac a years ago, and somehow they keep appearing on my various computers despite my best efforts to eliminate them.
Anyway... I fixed the problem by
- Going to the web version of dropbox
- Upgrading to the dropbox that allows you to see file versions (which used to be standard with a premium account)
- Locating the illegally named files
- Renaming them to legal names
- Permanently deleting the old file (just in case)
- Moving / deleting the newly renamed files
This problem could probably also happen with illegally long file names and unicode characters in file names. These are all problems that I have encountered and which have given me more grey hair than nearly anything else in my life.
I'm pretty sure that was possible on the Mac create idiotic file names that are not valid in Linux, Windows, or even across all Macs. I'm not interested in reproducing this error for the mac fanboys out there.
PS: This is Gene, Kindy's husband, not Kindy. She's not this cranky, at least not on public forums. We just use the same Dropbox account.
PPS: Before you get mad at Dropbox, you should know that Dropbox is better than anything else at managing these sorts of problems. From a programming perspective, Dropbox is freaking amazing. So please save your anger for the many other less amazing software products out there.
