You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
reesefaylona
5 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Dropbox not syncing and can't find Hardlinks
Hi! My dropbox won't sync properly. It has a grey icon on the file (instead of the green check or the blue syncing icon). It seems to have something to do with Selective Sync so I selected all my fol...
- 5 years ago
Hi! I understand what was going on now. It had something to do with Smart Sync keeping my files online only even if I selected it to go to my local folder. It's okay now, I followed the instructions (right-click > smart sync > local folder) so it's all syncing now :)
Thanks!
Walter
Dropbox Staff
Hi reesefaylona; welcome to our Community!
I'll be glad to help with this so could yo forward me a screenshot of this gray icon so I can have a visual too?
If I understand correctly and you're indeed seeing a gray circle with the minus sign,note that this may appear on a file or folder when you're using the selective sync feature (meaning you've opted not to sync this file or folder on your computer).
Normally, selectively synced files and folders won't appear in the Dropbox folder on your computer, however, if you create two files or folders with the same name, the gray icon will appear, indicating that one of the files isn’t being synced.
Could that be the case here?
While we're at it, these are the steps you need to take if you'd like to try fixing hardlinks and/or permissions on your files:
1. Make sure the Dropbox desktop application is running
2. Click on the Dropbox icon in your menu bar and then click your profile picture or initials
3. Select 'Preferences'
4. Click on the 'Account' tab
5. Hold down the 'Option/Alt' key (or ALT+H for Windows)
6. Click on the 'Fix Hardlinks' button (make sure you're still holding down the 'Option/Alt' key)
7. You may be prompted for your a username and password, this is your computer login credentials, not your Dropbox account ones
8. Give it about ten minutes to see if Dropbox resumes syncing.
If the above steps don’t resolve your issue, please repeat steps 1→5, but at step 6, this time click on the “Fix Permissions” button.
Note that if you use “Fix Permissions” syncing will start back over so if you need to use this step, please allow for a few hours to pass and let me know the results.
Thanks!
reesefaylona
5 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Hi! I understand what was going on now. It had something to do with Smart Sync keeping my files online only even if I selected it to go to my local folder. It's okay now, I followed the instructions (right-click > smart sync > local folder) so it's all syncing now :)
Thanks!
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