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Forum Discussion
Is the current dropbox version for macOS known to be buggy and are fixes in sight
Signed up to a 2TB plan as I believe that Dropbox is one of the best and also can do incremental updates
The issue is that the app on macOS seems to have constant issues with syncing and marking numerous files as "sync error"
The same set of files on OneDrive does not do this
This is on an M1 Max with 32GB running 14.2.1
Any pointers to fix this would be welcome as I've not resorted to using Dropbox through CloudMounter
Note: The files in question have no funny characters in them. All are [A-Z][a-z][0-9] in format
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Update on 2023-12-23:
After doing a bit of further exploring on the forum, I logged and logged back in which resulted in:
- This created a folder called Dropbox (2023-12-23 10/51) - This I imagine can be deleted?
- When logging back in (after the initial sync) it asked for the to upgrade the file provider which I allowed it (which is strange as I did this previously as well)
- It placed the newly synced files in the same place as previously
- After an attempt to sync to the same set of folders, it had the same issues, but
- When creating an entirely new set of folders and coping all my files to them, I had no more sync warnings
This leads me to believe that there is a bug and certain states that the software gets itself into are not "caught" by the app for self rectification.
A suggestion is that devs should ensure that the app is more "self-healing" and also do some stratification of the generic "sync error" allowing a user to have more insight into what is going on
I'm monitoring but so far, so good
- Mark
Super User II
Hi gregzacola
I've found things pretty stable recently. If its saying sync error something isnt right.
Have you tried a restart of Dropbox? OR certainly on initial sync's I've found it sometimes gets hung up on one file/directory and simply moving that out of the Dropbox folder and waiting for it to sync before readding works.
One thing also to point out is it wont work if you are syncing the same directories to both Dropbox and OneDrive. It has to be one or other.
Have you tried a restart of Dropbox?
Yes
OR certainly on initial sync's I've found it sometimes gets hung up on one file/directory and simply moving that out of the Dropbox folder and waiting for it to sync before readding works
There are too many like this for it to be a workable solution. I'm expecting Dropbox to "just work"
One thing also to point out is it wont work if you are syncing the same directories to both Dropbox and OneDrive. It has to be one or other.
I tested OneDrive separately on a duplicate of the same set of folders and had no issues
DropBox on Mac is frustrating me more that it should 🙂
DB hasn't worked right for me since Sonoma. I have v14.1.2, but I'm reluctant to upgrade further bc DB seems to not have caught up to that yet, and might explode into little pieces if Apple throws something new at them. And these are apparently not at all Apple issues or MacOS issues, they appear to be incompatibility issues with DB, which no longer works on MacOS the way it used to.
The menu bar icon seems to not be in sync with what is really happening, for one thing. I upload a file, and it does not report activity. 'Syncing Issues' reports nothing. It's like DB has fallen asleep.
If I go to a Finder window, what that shows if I update a file by uploading a newer version, is the old file with the older creation date still there—no new file.
The only way I can get it to work is to delete the older version completely, and sometimes it even appears to ignore that.
On dropbox.com, it seems to be a little better. But I still need to delete an old version first to replace it with a new version. That takes more DB resources, as they can't do incremental file updates that way and must redownload the entire file, which is likely not what they have in mind.
Dropbox has been befuddled since Ventura. Do they even care? Are they even trying to fix it?
It seems fairly broken to me. I also noticed cases where on a few files it reports that it can't sync, but when you look at the file via the web portal it's there, and you can open it.
This is just supposed to work. I really don't have time on my hands to fiddle
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey gregzacola, welcome to our Community!
As a first step, can you clarify the app's exact syncing status and version as shown in your menu bar at the moment?
Can you click on your avatar in the app's preferences and then on the 'View sync issues' option?
If you could also send me a screenshot from there, that'd be awesome.
Thanks a bunch, keep me updated!
v189.4.8395
Says files up to date
But have 600 odd "Can't sync this file or folder" and now I've selected certain directories as hidden "selective sync"
- Megan
Thanks for the info gregzacola!
Do any of your folders/files have any incompatible characters maybe?
Could you send me a screenshot of the "can't sync this file or folder" error you're receiving, please?
