We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.
Forum Discussion
I keep getting selective sync conflicts by Dropbox?
I have a major issue with sync conflicts at the moment, which i'm trying to resolve. Although what I find happening is that files are being moved by drop box into my private folder.
I've tested this. I moved everything out of my private folder into the root "dropbox" location after the sync took place it moved a whole bunch of folders back into my private folder with "selective Sync Conflict" in the name.
Why is it moving my files folders back into the private folder?
PS I did this:
To remove the "Selective sync conflict" folder
- Move any files you need from the "Selective Sync conflict" folder to the original folder.
- Delete the conflicted folder.
https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/select-files-to-sync
But as I explained it moves it back into the private folder.
Okay, I will try.
In using Selective Sync, (as an example) you selected Folder B and Folder D. Once you selected those folders in the Selective Sync Settings, Those folders will disappear off your Dropbox folder. It will be in the cloud only.
Let's say you had the same files that were in Folder B and D somewhere backed up (outside of Dropbox folder) and place them inside the Dropbox folder. It will create conflicted copies. That is because it's supposed to be 'off' your HD (off from your Dropbox folder)
Now, this is the way I understood from your Post. Its possible and not inconceivable that I may not have understood the situation.
But does this sound what happened?
This bug is awful.
1. Get tired of Dropbox relentlessly syncing scratch file folders, like the ones Visual Studio uses to store temp files in a Project's folder - you want the important Project files to be backed up continuously, but not the needless, frequently-modified temp files.
2. Remove those folders from Selective Sync.
3. Dropbox does the opposite of what you wanted - it keeps them in the cloud and deletes them, needlessly, from your machine - the exact opposite of what you were really asking, but whatever as long as it stops syncing useless folders.
4. It makes things much worse. A cascade of (Selective Sync Conflict) folders appear recursively on your machine, forever.
I'm really tired of getting prompted to pay more for Dropbox when they can't give us basic features like Ignore Folder. The feature request was on the Dropbox community and seen by Dropbox staff over 5 years ago. Embarrassing.
This is still happening.
Steps:
- Create a folder, let's call it foo
- In foo, create a folder called "node_modules"
- Go to Dropbox client, Selective Sync settings, and uncheck node_modules
- Wait for sync
- Verify on Dropbox.com that "node_modules" exists and is empty. Verify on local machine that folder no longer exists and Dropbox is 100% up to date and done syncing.
- Create a folder called "node_modules".
Expected:
- Folder exists locally, but does not sync because of Selective Sync settings. Files in that folder also do not sync.
Observed:
- Dropbox forcibly renames folder to "node_modules (Selective Sync Conflict)" no matter how many times you try to name it "node_modules".
This behavior is completely blocking my flow. It is contrary to the way Dropbox has worked for years. It was always incredibly annoying to have to go through all these steps every time I make a new project to avoid needless syncing...but at least it worked. And now, suddenly, it doesn't.
Your suggestion to "rename the conflict folder" is vague. Rename the local folder? It must be "node_modules" and your software is preventing that. Rename the destination folder? Then Selective Sync won't know not to sync node_modules. Rename it to node_modules after the forced rename? Wish I could, but you, Dropbox, are preventing that.
If this isn't fixed, I'm done with Dropbox. It's been a nice decade, but you guys are obviously not interested in supporting your customers. It's one thing to not implement features like wildcard ignore that have been asked for for years, and another to break the one (terrible, but functional) workaround for your own application's shortcomings.
- Chris_J
Super User
Hello kelos..
thanks for reaching out to us. It seems to me you are having these conflicts mainly because you first selected certain folders/files to be selective synced. Another word folder is taken off your hard drive. Meanwhile you placed another set of same files back into main Dropbox folder, causing Desktop Client to recognize duplicates.
- Thanks for the reply although I'm not quite sure I understand your explaination. Could you rephrase?
- Chris_J
Okay, I will try.
In using Selective Sync, (as an example) you selected Folder B and Folder D. Once you selected those folders in the Selective Sync Settings, Those folders will disappear off your Dropbox folder. It will be in the cloud only.
Let's say you had the same files that were in Folder B and D somewhere backed up (outside of Dropbox folder) and place them inside the Dropbox folder. It will create conflicted copies. That is because it's supposed to be 'off' your HD (off from your Dropbox folder)
Now, this is the way I understood from your Post. Its possible and not inconceivable that I may not have understood the situation.
But does this sound what happened?
- yes this sounds quite possible although I don't understand why it moves the files to the private folder though.
but thank you
I am also having the same issue after updat iOS on Mac to Catalina, however I do not have any duplicate files/folders that I can see. Can you help?
- Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Hey ArtNDzine, let's see what we can do here.
From what I understand, you're seeing some folders with Selective Sync Conflict but you don't have any duplicates, is that right?
As a first step, could you please ensure that folders with the same name are not selectively synced in your desktop app's settings?
If you don't find any, could you let me know what you see when you hover over your Dropbox icon on your menu bar?
Thanks in advance!
I'm definitely a newbie and pretty much an idiot, but this is what I did when I had the conflict problem (it added four folders that said were conflicted). I went into selective sync and de-selected those four folders. I then went to my file explorer and deleted those four folders from where they show up under DropBox. I then went to DropBox.com and deleted those four folders.
A very tentative "Voila!"
While I realize that some of what I did seems redundant, maybe it was necessary. I'm not sure what I did to have the conflict, I was just trying to move some pictures and folders and threw them into dropbox without thinking properly about where I put them. I've tested it a bit, and the issue is not reappearing. And the folders are not showing up in my Selective Sync, either.
edit: AND NOW THEY'RE BACK!!!! (so never mind)
I too am having the same issue.
So fed up!
Nothing but conflicted folders in Dropbox.
I am thinking of dumping the whole platform - it that bad.
Waste of time and resources when all it has to do is NOT back up the conflicted files in my reasoning.Can't believe this hasn't been worked out yet. It really is so frustrating and as a programmer I know how easy would be to add selective syncing with wild cards or being able to exclude folders starting with a dot or whatever is needed. Such a simple feature to add and so much back and forth for so many years, it is really disappointing. Too bad my company just renewed my yearly subscription as I'll definitely change service as this is really annoying. I just lost hours fixing a project that had hundreds of conflicted copies that prevented it from compiling. What a waste of time.
