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
Dropbox not uploading/syncing new files after fresh install of Linux Mint 20.1
Hi All,
I recently upgraded my Linux Mint 19 desktop with a fresh install of Linux Mint 20.1. Dropbox worked brilliantly on Mint 19. After the Mint upgrade and installing Dropbox via the Software Manager, my existing 100GB of files downloaded/synced from the server with no problem. However, new files or folders I create on this computer and save to the Dropbox folder are not uploading and syncing. I have tried uninstalling Dropbox, rebooting, and reinstalling (from both the repository and the Dropbox website), with the same result. I have double-checked that all folders except Vault are checked in Selective Sync under Preferences. I get no error messages. The pop-up menu from the icon in the system tray says it is syncing, and the icon has constant spinning arrows, but nothing seems to be happening. New files do not show up in Dropbox online.
I have a second desktop also running Linux Mint, and Dropbox has been syncing on it with no problem for many months, both with an install of 20.1 using the same .iso image I just used on this machine, and more recently after upgrading to 20.3. I can't figure out any differences between the Mint and Dropbox installations. I just experimented creating a new file and folder on that second machine, and it uploaded via Dropbox and synced to my phone right away, but not to this problem desktop.
FYI, if you can offer any troubleshooting, please consider me a linux newbie for anything beyond the GUI. I have no problem using a terminal/CLI, but instructions will have to be clear and complete. Thank you!
Hi Walter , Здравко , Jay , Hannah ,
For the sake of completeness I just wanted to post a note here that this issue is resolved and what the problem was.
After some initial troubleshooting and repeating another remove and reinstall without resolution, tech support had me enter the following commands:
sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME"
sudo chown -R "$USER" "/home/joe/Dropbox" ~/.dropbox
sudo chattr -R -i "/home/joe/Dropbox"
sudo chmod -R u+rw "/home/joe/Dropbox" ~/.dropboxI saw after entering the *chattr* command that I received pages of errors regarding a Timeshift backup folder I'd previously copied into Dropbox (thinking if I ran into problems later in my upgrading and had to do a fresh reinstall of the OS, I could copy the folder back to its original path to restore from). In hindsight a bad idea, but I didn't give it a thought when the Dropbox issue cropped up later.
So once I removed the Timeshift folder from Dropbox, I re-ran the above commands without any errors, and Dropbox subsequently synced properly.
(I guess there is still an open question about the python script, as I tried to run the testdropbox script file again and still got the error, but since that's not causing me current problems, I'll let it slide for now.)
Thank you all again,
Joe
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi joekur, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
When you reinstalled the app, did you do an advanced re-installation by following these steps?
This will help me to assist further!
Thanks Jay,
I had not done the Advanced Re-installation; I only removed dropbox by right-clicking Dropbox in the GUI panel main menu and selecting uninstall, then reinstalled it (I tried multiple uninstalls and reinstalls using both the .deb package downloaded from the Dropbox site, and installing using the Software Manager). However, I've now completed the Advanced Re-installation steps, unfortunately with the same results: the program says it is syncing but it's not. Thanks again!
- Hannah
Sorry to jump in here, joekur!
When you say that the application shows that it's syncing, but it's not, does it seem like it's stuck on a specific number of files?
What is the exact sync status of the application and the version installed?
You can see that by hovering your mouse over the Dropbox icon in your system tray.
