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Forum Discussion
Migrated to new MacBook Air results in 11 unsynced files and slow MS Word.
A few weeks ago I migrated from an old Intel MacBook Air (machine no longer available) to an M3 MacBook Air using Migration Assistant. I am currently running Sonoma 14.5 and Dropbox 203.4.4857. I am "eligible" for Dropbox for macOS on File Provider but have not gone through that process.
Issues:
1) The Dropbox menu item reports 11 files have not been synced and will take 45 minutes, but they never sync. When I look at them in the Finder, I see the blue sync circle next to the file name. Thousands of other files have appeared to sync properly with the checkmark icon. I believe most these are documents shared with other Dropbox users who have edit rights. Other shared documents seem to sync properly, just these 11.
2) When working with a Microsoft Word document from the Dropbox folder that DOES appear to be syncing properly (checkmark icon NOT blue sync circle), Microsoft Word will eventually slow to a crawl with spinning beach ball.
I have rebooted multiple times, which temporarily fixes the Word slowdown.
I have downloaded and reinstalled the latest Dropbox app several times without uninstalling Dropbox.
I have tried renaming the unsynced files to simple names with no punctuation.
Per a previous thread suggestion here, I looked for duplicate Dropbox apps in ~/Library/Application Support/Dropbox and did not find any. The only Dropbox app appears to be in the Applications folder. However, I DID find "~/Library/Application Support/Dropbox Electron" (created 5/12/22 604KB) in addition to "~/Library/Application Support/Dropbox" (Created 3/9/2017 with 3.3MB). Am I supposed to have both these folders?
My next step, would be to completely delete Dropbox from the new Mac (app, files/folders in library, synced files, etc), reinstall Dropbox and let it bring down all the files from the Dropbox server. That is about 250GB, so I'd rather not if there was a better solution.
Any suggestions to resolve the above issues?
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey markelp, wishing you a happy Monday!
Let me apologize for the length of my post, I just want to make sure we've covered everything here.
What is the file type of these 11 files that the app has a hard time syncing? Also, when did this first start happening? Was it when you first downloaded the app on the new device?
Now, onto the Word issue. If you temporarily quit the app, and then try to open an example Word file from within the Dropbox folder what happens then?
One more thing I'd like for us to check is how many files you have inside your Dropbox folder at the moment? You can locate your Dropbox folder within Finder, and right click on it before selecting "Get info". If you have a screenshot, feel free to attach it here.
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!
Thank you for the prompt reply. My responses inline below:
What is the file type of these 11 files that the app has a hard time syncing? Also, when did this first start happening? Was it when you first downloaded the app on the new device?
--- They are a variety of files, mostly .DOCX, .PPTX and .XLSX. I also just noticed that there are 3 or 4 folders with the blue sync icon, but there appears to be no files under those folders with the blue sync icon (all files in those folders have the checkmark icon).
Now, onto the Word issue. If you temporarily quit the app, and then try to open an example Word file from within the Dropbox folder what happens then?
--- Please clarify "from within the Dropbox folder". Do you mean double-clicking the icon in the Finder within the Dropbox folder? Or using the "Open" command in Word. I have tried both with the same results, but will test which ever you would like.
One more thing I'd like for us to check is how many files you have inside your Dropbox folder at the moment? You can locate your Dropbox folder within Finder, and right click on it before selecting "Get info". If you have a screenshot, feel free to attach it here.
--- 49,627 items with 256GB on disk. See attached. This is a small portion of the 2TB subscription allocation.
--- I also included a screenshot of the message I see at the bottom of the Dropbox menubar icon showing the 11 items that never sync. Not sure if that helps.
- Megan
Hey markelp, awesome, great job on the details!
Now as for the syncing files, let's try to sign out of the app and then back in to see if this changes things at all.
Also do you have any proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router settings that could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains?
The files that you have stored locally inside the Dropbox folder don't exceed the 300K soft limit that our app has, so that seems to be okay.
As for Word: you can quit the Dropbox app, and then locate your Dropbox folder inside your Finder and open your files by double clicking on them.
