Windows 7 Event Viewer Error "Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894)"

Since any update of Dropbox client software will probably re-establish DbxSvc service to be started automatically, here is my solution to put it back to and keep it in disabled state automatically:

Create some folder (e.g. "C:\DbxSvcWatchDog"). Inside this folder create a batch file named "dbxsvcdisable.cmd" with the following contents:

@echo off
sc stop DbxSvc
sc config DbxSvc start= disabled

Right click file "dbxsvcdisable.cmd" and create a link to it inside the same folder. Rename this link to "dbxsvcdisable" (this is the link's name as shown within Windows Explorer; a "DIR" command at the command prompt will show the link's name to be "dbxsvcdisable.lnk").

Edit the properties of the link, set its execution mode to "minimized" and activate the "run as administrator" feature via the Advanced... button. The last step is important, because you need administrative rights to execute the script (which provokes an UAC message you have to confirm in order to allow execution).

Inside the folder create a second batch file (a watchdog that constitutes a wrapper around the stop script) named "dbxsvcwd.cmd" with the following contents:

@echo off
SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
for /f "tokens=3" %%i in ('sc qc DbxSvc ^| find "START_TYPE"') do (
	if NOT "%%i"=="4" (
		call dbxsvcdisable.lnk
	)
)

Right click file "dbxsvcwd.cmd" and create a link to it inside the same folder. Rename this link to "dbxsvcwd". Edit the properties of the link and set its execution mode to "minimized". Move this link file to the startup folder for all users (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup).

Now every time Windows starts the wrapper is executed. It checks if the state of service DbxSvc is still set to disabled. If so nothing else happens. Only in the case that the service's state has changed from disabled to some other state (e.g. via an update of the dropbox client software), the stop script is run. You notice this via the UAC window you have to confirm for execution.

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• External threads like these:
• https://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/70442-dbxsvc-error-event-viewer.html
• https://community.spiceworks.com/windows_event/show/23846-dbxsvc-320
• http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/178422-Event-Viewer-ID-320
• http://www.freefixer.com/library/file/DbxSvc.exe-242995/

Reports about computers that freeze and need to be restarted and it does not look benign to Dropbox? That's not serious, that's a shame!

I've just received the following via email from Dropbox Customer Support:

Thank you for contacting Dropbox Support!

I have reviewed the error message with our team and would like to provide further information to help. The error message that you received regarding the failed connection to the drivers is related to your device's ability to read the software driver installed for Dropbox to operate. The information provided on our forums are predominately answered by our internal team directly to our users which appears as a "Dropboxer Reply" or users in the community that are "super users" and have a extensive knowledge of our product.

I hope this answers your question! If I can assist you with something else, please let me know!

The underlining has been added by me - clearly, all along, the problems was the fault of my device and yes, it was also the fault of the devices belonging to all you other users who have also reported the problem.  Why cannot Dropbox be honest?   

... the error "Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894) ..." is still there, but now it's classified as "information" only.

Do you know when this will be fixed? It currently logs this error once per second on the event log, which makes it very difficult to find any other useful information. If DropBox needs to log something as often as every second, it should perhaps only do it when a debug flag is set or perhaps to it's own log file somewhere.

Nick

Not sure whether cumulative update 6 for Windows 10 or the Dropbox v29.4.20 update caused it, but this issue is back with Windows 10. My Application event log is full of these generating one every second. This is pretty annyoing if you're trying to use the event log to for anything but useless dbxsvc events. The only work-around for now seems to be to stop the dbxsvc and set it to manual startup.

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/vLHXT

Hi all,

Just dropping in here to say thank you for your amazing research and persistence trying to get this issue fixed. I've been experiencing the same problems for a while now, but could never trace it back to Dropbox until today. Unlike a lot of you, my PC just completely freezes and becomes unusable, instead of simply throwing an error in the Event Log. 

While this does seem like a pretty critical issue, I'm baffled by the fact that Dropbox apparently don't want to fix this issue, if I understand the previous replies in this thread correctly. I will also email support with my findings, hoping they'll reconsider, but I highly doubt it.

Anywho, thank you all again for the amazing research so far! I'll keep you posted about my correspondence with Dropbox Support.

To recap:

* The installation package adds an entry for a file system driver (dbx.sys) and a service (DbxSvc.exe).
* There's no dbx.sys installed though. We get three identical files, dbx-canary.sys, dbx-dev.sys and dbx-stable.sys in %SystemRoot%\System32\drivers.
* The file system driver fails to load obviously. The service tries to communicate with the driver and fails, too. Note that the service uses named pipes to communicate with the driver as far as I can tell, that's why we get a misleading ("The system cannot find the file specified") explanation for the error ("Failed to connect to the driver").

The service and the driver are probably part of the, in development, "Project Infinite" as Loopback mentioned in an earlier post. The development team is aware of all the problems this causes. They probably believe the problems are benign and won't spend the time required to fix them in any case.