We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here. 

Forum Discussion

Wietse V.'s avatar
Wietse V.
Helpful | Level 5
7 years ago

Dropbox keeps (re)indexing and syncing after activating smart sync

I've recently activated the smart sync functionality for my teams account. When I did, Dropbox started indexing and syncing a huge number of files which made sense to me because it needed to download all shortcuts to online files (the ones y had previously saved online only using selective sync). However, after finishing the whole process (after a day or so of syncing), and restarted my laptop, Dropbox seems to have started the process all over again. And today again. When hovering over the dropbox icon in the taskbar, the pop up message mentions hundreds of thousands of files to be indexed and uploading/downloading tens of thousands of files too. These numbers go down slowly (syncing in progress) but then go up again as if the whole process starts all over. 

 

Is this a know issue? Normal behaviour? Any suggestions about what I could do to solve this?

 

I'm running Windows 7 and Dropbox v47.4.74

 

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

  • Hi Minato, 

     

    Thanks for your reply. I decided to reinstall the Dropbox desktop application yesterday. After I did, I waited another couple of hours for a full sync, but once that was done the issue seems to have disappeared. The Dropbox app now reports that it's fully up to date and seems to stay that way (except for normal syncing behaviour when a file is changed).

     

    I propose I wait to see if the problem reoccurs, and if it does I will create a ticket at the support page as per your suggestion. 

     

    Kind regards, Wietse 

  • Minato's avatar
    Minato
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Hey Wietse V.,

     

    It appears that this issue needs to be investigated by a speciliazed team.

    Can you create a ticket at our Support page?

     

    When you create it, please, send me the ticket number so I can forward it!

     

    Thank you in advance!

    • Wietse V.'s avatar
      Wietse V.
      Helpful | Level 5

      Hi Minato, 

       

      Thanks for your reply. I decided to reinstall the Dropbox desktop application yesterday. After I did, I waited another couple of hours for a full sync, but once that was done the issue seems to have disappeared. The Dropbox app now reports that it's fully up to date and seems to stay that way (except for normal syncing behaviour when a file is changed).

       

      I propose I wait to see if the problem reoccurs, and if it does I will create a ticket at the support page as per your suggestion. 

       

      Kind regards, Wietse 

      • Wietse V.'s avatar
        Wietse V.
        Helpful | Level 5

        Unfortunately the problem just popped up again (after a few days of working normally). A couple of observations:

        - dropbox at first failed to start at windows startup. When I rebooted Dropbox did start and started syncing.

        - Dropbox now is indexing 340,000 files and I have syncing icons on all my files and folders on dropbox. DB also reports that it's uploading 1782 files, which does not correspond to 1782 new or changed files I added to my computer since yesterday.

        - I occasionally get pop-up messages informing me that I just joined folders that I in fact have joined already days or weeks ago. 

         

        Argh.

         

        I'll request a support ticket to further investigate this. 

         

         

         

    • trackerweb's avatar
      trackerweb
      New member | Level 2

      Hi There,

       

      I'm having the same problem of this guys are facing.  After searching around, i can see that this is a problem for many user. Is anything that we can do? 

      Otherwise i have no choise that stop using the services. Everytime i restart computer, start to Resync again, i have around a 1Tb of files, so, it been days that neves stops Syncing/uplaod/reload this that was UpToDate before.

       

      Any solutions?

       

      • DragonLover's avatar
        DragonLover
        Explorer | Level 3

        Same problem here. No syncing problem on desktops (Windows 10) but on my MacBook Pro mid 2018  Dropbox is syncing, uploading and downloading like crazy (hover over the icon shows these activities) , and keeps doing so for days already, without me having changed anything that would justify this. And ond the dekstops no problem at all, so evidently a bug. Downside is that these unnecessary activities cut my batterylife, making my MacBook empty in a few hours instead of an working day. I hoped to find a solution here, but nothing? Ik stop dropbox on the MacBook but this diminishes my faith in DropBox dramatically. 

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!