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Forum Discussion
Randomly deleted files and folders
Anyone else experiencing files and folders being deleted from Dropbox without human intervention?
I know that I'm going to get the stock Dropbox answer here that it can't happen, but I can expl...
Mark
Super User II
Super User IIIt isnt a bug - it isnt possible to delete files on Dropbox without SOME sort of interaction from a computer or a person. You can go to a file that was deleted via www.dropbox.com/home , click on 'Show Deleted files' and then one of them thats deleted and look at the previous versions. That shows which devices/users instigated the delete command.
Is your Dropbox on an external or network drive? Or, does it contain junctions/symlinks? Thats what usually causes these.
And you can request a rollback at https://help.dropbox.com/delete-restore/recover-deleted-files-folders
I'm not using any symlinks. Some of the files might be shared in a homegroup but not the affected folder.
The deletion operation interaction must have been from a computer as opposed to a user. As I indicated the manner in which the files were deleted, certain files and folders several branches down, while other folders in the same subfolders were unaffected. Again, based on the timestamps on the affected folders (i.e. the modified timestamp updated because subfolders and files were deleted) the time seem to roll in an alphabetical order over the course of a few minutes which would indicate a sync operation. I agree with your statement that it is unlikely that the cloud deleted the files out of the blue, it appears that the app is likely what caused the change since it appears that the deletions took place at about the same pace as a sync operation. Is it possible that starting dropbox on the second computer where it had apparently crashed earlier and was hadn't been running for a day caused a problem? Are their client side sync metadata files that could have been corrupted or gotten out of sync? Perhaps something happened to the metadata on those files on the offline computer and dropbox misunderstood the metadata and deleted the files as part of its sync operation?
I went to the link help link you shared and don't see a rollback option there. Right now we are starting the process of manually restoring the files from the delete event page. Thanks for your reply and help.
The deletion operation interaction must have been from a computer as opposed to a user. As I indicated the manner in which the files were deleted, certain files and folders several branches down, while other folders in the same subfolders were unaffected. Again, based on the timestamps on the affected folders (i.e. the modified timestamp updated because subfolders and files were deleted) the time seem to roll in an alphabetical order over the course of a few minutes which would indicate a sync operation. I agree with your statement that it is unlikely that the cloud deleted the files out of the blue, it appears that the app is likely what caused the change since it appears that the deletions took place at about the same pace as a sync operation. Is it possible that starting dropbox on the second computer where it had apparently crashed earlier and was hadn't been running for a day caused a problem? Are their client side sync metadata files that could have been corrupted or gotten out of sync? Perhaps something happened to the metadata on those files on the offline computer and dropbox misunderstood the metadata and deleted the files as part of its sync operation?
I went to the link help link you shared and don't see a rollback option there. Right now we are starting the process of manually restoring the files from the delete event page. Thanks for your reply and help.
This has been happing to 100's of people Mark this is a Dropbox problem not a user problem. Dropbox need too address this issue now before 100's of people leave for a better sulotion.
- Mark@MeandMrsJones - its possible a corrupt crash caused the issue. Especially if its alphabetical. But, its more likely the crash caused the files to be removed locally which was then replicated to Dropbox. If the Dropbox database is corrupt it simply crashes the software and rebuilds from scratch. Its kind of a 'it works or it doesnt' issue, there isnt an in the middle.
In terms of roll back, that link shows you how or tells you to log a ticket via http://bit.ly/cm-support.
@cqcastle. It isnt a Dropbox issue. Look at the code. Dropbox has no code in it AT ALL to remove/edit or change files. It simply isnt possible.
And by all means leave - thankfully thats the open market. But, I'm sure they wont panic over a few 100s with buggy systems leaving - as they are still the largest/growing quickest etc. Remember you can close accounts at www.dropbox.com/account- @Mark the "SuperUser"
I love the attitude. You are without doubt the most helpful person on these boards.
I'm not sure how much more helpful you could be - it's absolutely amazing.
Writing everything off to some "100s with buggy systems" and why would dropbox care about them? Guess people pointing out a problem is just too much to deal with.
Hope Dropbox know that you are the face of their company!
