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Dropbox "Starting..." for days on Ubuntu 22.04
I've installed the Dropbox command line version following the instructions on https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux This is a 64 bit install on Ubuntu 22.04: uname -a Linux redacted 5.15.0-9...
As it gets set up, the computer is not currently running antivirus, firewall, nor vpn/proxy.
When running dropbox start there was a message that appeared shortly after starting:
Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem.
While I had done that change, I found that running sysctl fs.inotify showed the fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 100000 was already set. On the machine where Dropbox currently works, I found we had the max_user_watches set to 10000000. Changing that value on this new server and rebooting seems to have gotten us past the Starting... status and now it is Indexing...
I'm hopeful it will get beyond Indexing in the next day and be able to finish Syncing.
The version:
username@redacted:~/Dropbox$ dropbox version
Dropbox daemon version: 189.4.8395
Dropbox command-line interface version: 2023.09.06
username@redacted:~/Dropbox$
The exact status (please tell me if there is a better way to get it):
username@redacted:~/Dropbox$ dropbox status
Starting...
username@redacted:~/Dropbox$
I'll give it a reboot now.
It has rebooted and is still in the same status. When it starts I get this output:
dropbox start Starting Dropbox...dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.abi3.so' dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.abi3.so' dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/apex._apex.abi3.so' dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so' dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so' dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/tornado.speedups.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so' dropbox: load fq extension '/home/jenkins/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-189.4.8395/wrapt._wrappers.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so' Done!
And then after that the "dropbox status" says "Starting..."
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Thanks for the update greg-knaddison
Do you happen to be running any 3rd party apps like antivirus or firewalls, or VPN/proxy settings on your machine?
If so, could you temporarily disable them and let me know how it goes?
As it gets set up, the computer is not currently running antivirus, firewall, nor vpn/proxy.
When running dropbox start there was a message that appeared shortly after starting:
Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem.
While I had done that change, I found that running sysctl fs.inotify showed the fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 100000 was already set. On the machine where Dropbox currently works, I found we had the max_user_watches set to 10000000. Changing that value on this new server and rebooting seems to have gotten us past the Starting... status and now it is Indexing...
I'm hopeful it will get beyond Indexing in the next day and be able to finish Syncing.
- Hannah
Thanks for the update on this, greg-knaddison.
Hopefully, that will work and syncing will finish for you, but if you're still running into any issues, let us know!
