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Forum Discussion
Os X 10.13 High Sierra & Smart Sync
There's a lot of posts about possible issues with OS X High Sierra and Smart Sync. We use dropbox a lot and have only recently enabled Smart Sync for all users in the team. Can someone from Dropb...
Apple recommended something I should have thought of... Safe mode.
I first disabled Gatekeeper using the following command in terminal (unclear if this would be required):
sudo spctl --master-disable
I then rebooted the Mac into safe mode and opened the Security panel in System Preferences and clicked the Allow button.
The Blocked message cleared from the Security Panel and Smart Sync was active and operating normally when I rebooted.
Issue seems resolved.
Hey y'all - I'm a Dropbox for Business user that was experiencing this same issue today (I originally popped by this thread to see if the answer was in here before reaching out to Dropbox Support)
This solution from support worked to resolve this issue for my team members and I .... Full message below:
Hi,
I’ve taken a look at your account, and there appear to be some issues with the Dropbox software currently installed on your computer. To ensure that the software is working correctly, I’d like you to do a complete reinstall to try to fix the problem. This will not affect or remove the files in your Dropbox folder.
Please save and quit all programs accessing files in the Dropbox folder, and then follow these instructions:
Note: Please be sure to take note or take a screenshot of any Selective Sync settings you may have applied as well as the location of your Dropbox folder (if not in the default location) prior to re-installing, as you will need to match these settings upon re-install.
- Stop Dropbox (If needed):
- Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen
- Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select 'Quit Dropbox'
- Download the newest version:
https://www.dropbox.com/downloading
-
Open your Terminal app (Located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
-
Copy and paste the following lines into the Terminal, ONE AT A TIME, and press ENTER after each one. PLEASE make sure you copy and paste these commands (don't type them by hand), as getting them wrong could cause some harm. You'll be prompted for your computer's admin password (not your Dropbox password) after entering the first command. Keep in mind that the password field in the terminal will remain blank as you type your password. After you type it, just press ENTER. You'll know that these instructions complete normally once the initial line of text (called prompt) comes up again:
sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME"
sudo chown -R "/Users/yourusername/DropboxFolderName (including spaces)"
sudo chmod -R u+rw "/Users/yourusername/DropboxFolderName (including spaces)"
sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old
sudo chmod -N ~
sudo mv /Library/DropboxHelperTools ~/DropboxHelperTools.old
Please note that once the prompt displays, the instruction completed the requested task and is ready for the next command. If the command returns an error or does not respond after an hour, you may want to try restarting your computer and try these steps again.
-
Delete the Dropbox application from the Applications folder. You may need to provide your computer password in order to perform this action.
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Open the .dmg file from step # 2 and double click the Dropbox icon to install Dropbox.
-
When Dropbox has finished installing, during the initial setup and sign in process, apply any Selective Sync settings you may have had prior to the reinstall and select the Dropbox folder location (if not in the default location).
IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content, you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to, otherwise you will create a new Dropbox folder which will start to download your content again.
To select your already established folder on your drive, after signing in and choosing which folders to sync, and before you click on "Open my Dropbox folder", you should see an "Advanced Settings" link, click on this.
Then you can choose the parent folder of the already established Dropbox folder. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox (Team)" you'll want to select the folder "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/".
At the end of this process, after clicking "Open my Dropbox folder", it might take some time to re-index the files and sync any pending changes.
Please note that any changes made to the files in the Dropbox folder, the web interface or other linked devices while the folder was "off-line", will generate conflicted copies:
https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/conflicted-copy
Finally, this process only works when linking to the exact same account that was previously linked to this computer. If you'd like to merge accounts, please refer to the following Help Center article:
https://help.dropbox.com/account/merge-two-accounts
Hi Guys, sorry even with this still happening. What else you got? High Sierra 10.13.2. Dropbox client 41.4.80. Please Advise.
And a quick screenshot here of what's going on. When we enter the users email and hit connect, we get the prompt to open System Preferences to enable Smart Sync. But when we do, we see nothing to enable. High Sierra 10.13.2. Dropbox client 41.4.80. Please Advise:
It has been 3 weeks and no solution?
I am experiencing the same issues with high sierra and smart sync. In fact, syncing in general is extremely slow and inefficient. We are paying over £60 per month for Dropbox as a team and finding the level of support totally unhelpful. We reported issues in Dec 2017 and we are still waiting for a solution...
same persistent problem here...
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
- Jane,
I too have contacted the official support but the support person knew nothing of this issue and asked me to try various things such as installing. I eventually gave up because she really couldn't help and seem to understand the issue which is why i turned to the forum.
My ticket info is: Ticket #7562661
We too are seeing the same exact problems. We are now in High Sierra 10.13.3 using Dropbox app v43.4.50. Problems still persist with Smart Sync and sycronization. I believe there are screenshots to this discussion you can reference.
- Is this happening while using VNC to remote into the machines or is it also happening when sitting at the keyboard?
In my case I was using VNC with all of the machines. - It's as soon as you install it. Even on a freshly built machine.
- and it's not while connected to any remote service such as VNC.
YES! We know about the VNC problem. Found that out the HARD WAY! But yes, problem is when the app asks you to enable in System Preferences, and nothing is there to enable. Per Screenshot:
- I am also having this issue. Running 10.13.3 on macs (and I manage 80 of them!) with Dropbox v44.3.52
On several machines I've wiped the harddrive and reinstalled high-sierra and then downloaded fresh versions of Dropbox. This is unacceptable. Please fix. - Jane
As with Karla, I manage a fleet of 30 MBP/iMacs and we are seeing this issue on fresh installs.
* High Sierra 10.13.3
* Dropbox app v43.4.52
It's really not acceptable to be not providing some prominent advice and acknowledgement of the issue *directly* from Dropbox.
- Sanchez
Yes, apologies.
Dropbox v44.3.52.Hello, I'm experiencing the same problem. High Sierra 10.13.3 and Dropbox 42.4.50 won't allow me to enable smart sync. My Dropbox for Business account has over 25TB of data. I CAN'T sync that much data and Selective Sync is way too cumbersome with this much info.
We need a fix for this now.
- Jane
It honeslty seems like Dropbox either does not realize there is an issue or does not know how to fix it. If you're developers are working on it you should just let folks know they are actively working it and provide frequent updates. I have a ticket open and they seem to ask the same questions and do the same steps to troubleshoot. It's very frustrating. I've never really had issues with Dropbox before until now.
- Jane
Ok just to share some testing I've done. So, in my environemnt I believe I've narrowed the problem to AirWatch. An MDM solution. So, I imaged a fresh laptop with ONLY High Sierra. The first thing I do is install Dropbox. I'm able to see the "allow" extension option. I don't click it and restart the comptuer. Upon restarting I install and enroll the agent with AirWatch with nothing else. No profiles, settings, or anything. As soon as I do that, I'm no longer able to see the "allow" extension option. If I unenroll and restart the laptop, I can see it again.
Now, i'm sure others are not using AirWatch but it could be other software that interferes with the Dropbox extension. I'm going to test other apps to see if I get the allow and see if it's just Dropbox or others apps as well.
- SanchezHave a great week ahead :wink:
Hello. I did not have the installation problems with the kernel extension. However, I have two Macs (MacBook Pro 2014, MacBook Air 2011) running 10.13.3, and both started having problems during sleep after I have added the smart sync feature: they crashed during sleep mode, (e.g. over night) and, after a reboot, displayed a macOS error message "sleep wake failure experienced a problem". On both Macs the problem disappeared after removing the Dropbox kernel extension in "/Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/" (it was not easy getting rid of the extension...).
Any ideas?
- Sanchez
