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funwin's avatar
funwin
Helpful | Level 6
2 months ago

The Dropbox desktop app gets stuck syncing for the team on MacOS

To clarify, dropbox works 95% of the time, so it's not a sync issue. But for me and my whole dropbox team, roughly once or twice a day, dropbox completely binds up. 

For example, I have double clicked to open a 6MB file and it's been 20min and still nothing. The icon at the top says syncing but the file never actually downloads and opens. 

when i hover mouse over the dropbox icon it says 'syncing' but no KB upload or download rate that it usually has when it's actually syncing.

It's some sort of bug as again, dropbox works 95% of the time fore uploads and downloads, but then its just dies and you cant open anything for an hour until something happens and it randomly comes back online. 

I have tried pausing the sycn and starting again. I have tried restarting dropbox. no success. Maybe a restart of the computer. 

but geez it's frustrating. 

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

    Hi there funwin - thanks for bringing this to our attention.

    Can you please let us know the exact version of the computers you're noticing this on and the version of the Dropbox desktop app installed there as well?

    Does the issue go away after rebooting your computers or quitting and relaunching the app by any chance?

    Let us know more and we'll take it from there. 

  • funwin's avatar
    funwin
    Helpful | Level 6

    It's a Mac Studio, M2 Ultra running Sonoma 14.6.1 with 192GB or ram so surely cant be the computer spec. Dropbox is v212.4.5767 

    Usual steps I try are:

    1 - pause and restart the sync. 
    2 - If that doesnt work, I restart dropbox 

    I suppose I could restart the computer next time to see. If it happens today I will see if a restart fixes it

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

      Yes please funwin

      We would appreciate it if you did, just to have a clear insight as to the exact behavior there.

      However, your troubleshooting on this is also what I'd suggest on my end, good catch there. 

      • funwin's avatar
        funwin
        Helpful | Level 6

        It's happening now. It's been stuck syncing for over an hour with no indication it's doing anything at all. No download rate, no file progress. Tried pausing and restarting the syncing, nothing. 

        This time is on the laptop. 

        I have two screenshots but the attach button doesnt do anything. The can be found here - edit, i cant do a link using the editor due to an invalid html tag. 

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