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Forum Discussion
conflicting copies and deleted files still appearing
For weeks now we have been seeing the same users getting conflicting copies in there group dropbox folders. These users won't ever open these specific files therefore don't understand why the same fi...
You guys at Dropbox are killing me. There's a serious bug in this conflicted copy "safeguard". Tonight, I started cleaning up a temporary folder I use on my main machine (running Kubuntu). The only other machine that's on right now is a Windows box and it's idle. NO FILES ARE OPEN on that box. I delete a file on the Linux machine. Seconds later, it reappears, calling itself a "windows conflicted copy". How the hell does that happen? The only workaround is to disable syncing on the Windows machine until after I'm done deleting files. But guess what? As soon as I turn it back on for the Windows machine, all the files I deleted on the Linux box ARE BACK! What SHOULD happen is the Windows machine should see that the files on the Linux machine are NO LONGER THERE and then delete them from Windows. But no. Instead, Dropbox sees that the Linux machine is "missing" some files the Windows box has, so the Windows box starts dutifully uploading them and the the Linux box is happy to download them. Can't your damned server see that I've DELETED the file and then handle it appropriately by DELETING IT everywhere else? It seems simple to me!
Every now and then, I'll go into a folder I haven't opened in a while, and there's a whole shitload of 'em. And don't even get me started on this "case conflict" nonsense when it's DROPBOX that's creating files with the WRONG CASE! But like I said, don't get me started as that's a separate issue (except for when Dropbox - all by its lonesome, starts creating "case conflict conflicting files"! Yep. I see those too.
I've never understood how file syncing can be so complicated. I see this in browsers that sync bookmarks too. Every once in a while, I go into a folder in bookmarks (Firefox) and there are 4 copies of every bookmark! I gave up on Opera years ago for the same reason. This seems to suggest a fundamental flaw with the current "state of the art" in file synchronization. Tonight, I'm forced to uninstall Dropbox on the Windows machine. I'll reinstall it tomorrow and see what happens.
EDIT: FWIW, the next morning, I turned on the laptop (also running Kubuntu). In this instance, Dropbox DID work correctly. It deleted the files I wanted gone. That tells me it's either a timing issue or a problem with the code in the Windows version. Perhaps a corrupted database somewhere? I don't know but for $10/mo. I expect it to work.
