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Forum Discussion
I get an error message that Windows System Restore failed?
Hi
When I run Windows System Restore it fails with this error message
System Restore failed to replace the file (D:\Users\*******\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache\qebcobkqbgbzfynfuwbof\placeholder.bat) wit...
Hi everyone,
We're testing out some changes in v182 (currently in beta) that should hopefully help with this. Let us know if you continue to run into problems.
Thanks
Hi
Running Winver 22H2 OS Build 19045.2965
Windows restore did seem to work ok apart from an eset file restore error
Went back ok to a restore point made a few days ago and test programme that I had installed wasnt there after restore
So maybe ok but I will continue to make system images out of safety
Richard
radical_exponent
Dropbox Engineer
Dropbox EngineerHi everyone,
We're testing out some changes in v182 (currently in beta) that should hopefully help with this. Let us know if you continue to run into problems.
Thanks
We look forward to hearing more details about how this fix may resolve the problem.
I received an email stating that; "A reply to a topic you are following has been accepted as a solution!" However, I did not see any comments from anyone validating that System Restores work properly now. Has anyone actually tested this?
If you look just above at the last few messages, system restore works on updated builds of Windows. It tested it and didn't have any issues and another person confirmed it.
- radical_exponent
To clarify, we weren't able to reproduce this internally, so it's a little uncertain what's going wrong - and that also means we weren't able to fully verify the fix. In my testing, system restores all worked fine (both before and after the fix).
To answer your earlier question, we went thru the posts in this thread, collected a list of the likely offending files, and made sure we proactively clean those up from the .dropbox.cache folder - such that they can't possibly interfere with the system restore (they don't exist!). Supposing our theory on what's causing this is correct, that should fix it, at least when restoring to a point _after_ the updated Dropbox client has run this cleanup proceedure.
If anyone is still able to reproduce this, that would be helpful to know.
To clarify: The fix was something that either Microsoft or Dropbox could have implemented. It was more on Microsoft though because System Restore shouldn't crash because of one App. I filed a bug on this using Microsoft's Feedback Hub and they appear to have fixed it.
I had this happen on Windows 10 version 22H2, with the one exception that the offending file was placeholder.ico rather than placeholder.bat.
I still have this issue in Windows 11 on 4/2/2024. I needed to do a system restore, and none of them worked because of this and similar Dropbox messages.
What is the status of this fix? How do you work around it?
Thanks.
There's one simple fix that I found after a few days of being stuck with the issue. All you have to do is reinstall Windows and get started from scratch. At least your files will be saved in a backup folder.
