We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.
Forum Discussion
Dropbox asks if I want to remove a document right after I save it
For the last couple of days, whenever I have saved a Photoshop or an Illustrator document to Dropbox, I have received a pop-up message right afterwards that says:
"Remove "name of document" from yo...
I hope it's ok to join this thread. I'm hoping to provide additional information and not to hijack the thread.
I am encountering the exact same problem, except that it's with Microsoft Visual Studio rather than with Photoshop or Illustrator. I'm developing a C++ program for my own personal use (it's a hobby project). Sometimes but not always I get the same message as the original posted immediately after doing a Build. Doing a Build is C++ talk for doing a compile and link of my code. I assure you that I as a user am NOT doing doing a save nor am I moving a file into or out of a folder that's a sub-folder of a Dropbox folder nor am I deleting a file or renaming a file or anything even remotely like that. I just click the Build button on Visual Studio and wait a few seconds for it to complete. It's obvious that within its own internal operation, Visual Studio is reading and writing lots of files during a Build - perhaps dozens of them. And for all I know, it may be deleting and recreating and renaming files. I don't know. These are internal Visual Studio files that I don't interact with in any sort of direct way. I only interact with the actual C++source code that I'm developing. I would be happy to provide a screen shot, but there is really nothing so see other than the original warning/error message that was already posted by the original posted.
I am coping by Pausing Dropbox during a build. It's not a happy solution. But to tell you to truth, it's getting to the point that I may want to do that anyway, even if if this warning/error message had not occurred. During a Build, Visual Studio seems to update, change, delete, rename, recreate or whatever so many files and so many big files that Dropbox can't keep up. And sometimes the heavy Dropbox sync activity trying to keep up seems to lock a file that Visual Studio is using and cause the Build to fail. Pausing Dropbox and runningn the Build again will always solve the problem. It's like Dropbox is too agressive and needs to wait a couple of minutes after a file is changed before syncing. I'm sure Dropbox thinks its activity can't cause an application to crash because Dropbox is only reading. I can't explain the exact mechanism by which it happens, but I assure you that Dropbox activity does occasionally cause Visual Studio to crash. So far, I have never lost anything because pausing Dropbox and rerunning the Build sets things right. But it's not a comfortable situation.
- Fiona
Dropbox Staff
Your feedback is welcome everywhere in this Community thejerrybryan.
Thank you for this detailed description. You are in the right topic since you are getting the same error.
What version of the Dropbox desktop application do you have installed?
If Dropbox is taking up too much bandwidth when it is syncing, I suggest to limit the bandwidth to work better and faster until we fix this. You can take the steps offered here, but set it to "limited".
Let me know how this goes and please get me a screenshot of the error you are getting. It will help others that might be getting the same error.
We will not let you pause and unpause forever. We will fix this together. :slight_smile:
Looking forward to your next comment to help you more.
I'm running Dropbox 88.4.172.
I guess I'm really describing two different problems. One problem is Visual Studio crashing if Dropbox is running during a Build. This is highly intermittent and highly unrepeatable. It's been going on for years, ever since I have been running Dropbox. Ican't remember how many years that has been. The second problem which has only started happening in the last few days are the messages about Dropbox wanting to remove a file from my disk. Unless the exact file name matters, then a screenshot doesn't really matter because the only information that would be in the screenshot would be the message. This second problem is also intermittent, but it happens much more often than the first. I'll try to post a screenshot the next time either one happens.Hi All,
On this thread, two completely independent problems seems to be discussed at once.
The initial issue (deleting message) is something related to the way some (typical - office or big IDEs or ... similar) programs behave. Key moment here is that, at saving, saved files aren't just updated, but initially new copy gets saved, original file gets removed and, finally, temporary copy gets renamed to the original name. That's done for stability - if something goes wrong, during save, (crash, for example) original file is still there, untouched, at least. Since the deletion, noted above, corresponding message pops up - of course (there is no way Dropbox to know what's going on and why the initial file gets removed, even that's "behind the scene" and not intended by user). That's it.
The second issue is related to the way Windows behaves by default - all open files get locked. That's why such issues happen only on Windows, but not on Linux, for example. Some programs are more sensitive and that's why such things happens. Probably Dropbox can do something here (if they want) to improve the application behaviour (especially in Windows - some workaround to Microsoft's bug, in fact).
Hope this adds some clarity, at least.
As workaround: For first issue - little bit more attention would be fine to prevent real deletion, not replacement with new file version. For both cases - set Dropbox on pause while using such sensitive programs will prevent the confusions (both - to the user and to the Dropbox program). :wink: Till the moment final solution comes up.
