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BennyCe's avatar
BennyCe
Explorer | Level 3
7 months ago

Sync is "up to date" yet many folders are missing from the backup folder

hey guys

I am helping someone with their Dropbox on Windows 10, they have the 2TB plan, the folders in question are around 120GB in size to be backed up so plenty of space. 

 

Anyway, fresh start on Dropbox, reinstalled the app last week as the friend hadn't been using Dropbox for ages, got the latest, synced the folders, but also selected the Documents and Pictures folders (the user profile ones). 

The connection was pretty bad, but two days later, it claimed it was all synced, yet when we checked Dropbox online, under My PC - name of PC, lots of folders were missing from within the Documents folder (local drive user Documents one). When I look at the backup settings, I can see the Documents folder is selected, it should automatically select all the sub folders? 

No sync errors as such, no firewall issues, why would some sync and not others from the same folder? Any ideas? 

Missing folders are like the folders synced successfully, so containing Word, Excel and PDF documents mainly. The folders are also missing in the local Dropbox folder directory! There is disk space available on the local drive so that's not an issue. Also the missing folders are not buried into many sub folders, it's literally folders 2-3 deep. 

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

    Hey BennyCe, welcome to the Dropbox Community!

     

    One thing I can think of in this case is that perhaps the folders in question are unsynced through selective sync.

     

    Can you check the steps here, to see if the folders are selected, or unselected?

     

    Do they even appear in the selective sync settings?

     

    Let me know and we'll go from there.

    • BennyCe's avatar
      BennyCe
      Explorer | Level 3

      Thanks Hannah, nothing is selected in the selective sync when I looked at it for the Documents folder. All is selected in the main job setup configuration, every sub folder and file for the Documents folder, therefore, I'd expect it to sync up.

      When I look at the Dropbox folder on the PC, I do not see the missing folders to suggest any sort of sync has taken place, likewise, I do not see them on the cloud either, so it never backed them up.

      On the web Dropbox, I dragged a folder that was missing from a sub folder in Documents, which should have been backed up, and sure enough, as it was small, it synced and refreshed the view, could see it both on the Desktop and Web, but wouldn't want to do that for all the missing folders. 
      It's usual files (Word, Excel etc), they are not Read Only. Is there some odd limit that I should be aware of, like number of files? 

      thanks

    • BennyCe's avatar
      BennyCe
      Explorer | Level 3

      I think you answered the wrong post...

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

        Hey BennyCe, thanks for the update.

         

        If you take a look at this page, are you able to see all the backed up files correctly?

         

        What's the status of the backup there?

  • Scrym606's avatar
    Scrym606
    New member | Level 2

    hey. i use dropbox for work syncing and file sharing, aka i have all work stuff on a synced dropbox folder.

    this is a glitch that happens in very deep dropbox folders. i have lost pretty big files and folders plus i depend on a lot of linked content which sometimes just does not exist. this is why i now do a dumb backup of all files in my dropbox due to the servers sometimes either forgetting you had a file and just not syncing it to outright deleting files. this also seems to be a problem if you use non american letters like ÆØÅ that the dropbox servers sometimes just throw away. i have lost a lot of recorded audio due to them having unrecognizable symbols too. dropbox.. we rely on you, please be super vocal about this if it is a problem, we will get it but don't act like the problem doesn't exist. we would rather you be up front about this and let us use you in a limited manner rather than letting us lose stuff and then replying with "we are looking into the issue".

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