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Forum Discussion
Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac
Smart Sync causes my quick preview function (spacebar) to not function properly on my Mac. I can't preview thumbnails, or quick preview any videos or photos. Any ideas why this happens?
Likely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.
When you set a file to Online Only, the only thing that's left of that file on your computer is the necessary information to make it appear in the folder. Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.
Remember, when you set a file to Online Only, the file is removed from the computer leaving behind only a marker file. In order to access that file, whether it be to open and edit it or simply preview it, the file needs to be on the computer (Smart Sync doesn't allow you to open files directly from the Dropbox servers). When you open a file, it's synced back to your local drive and then opened as normal. When you're done with the file, if you want it to be online-only again, you need to mark it as such.
I find this answer from Jane, so annoying, "how you determined that this was attributed to Dropbox & what were the steps you followed along the way" it's been said here, again and again.
1. The Problem didn't exist before smart sync, once I activated the feature this issue started happening.
2. The Problem dissapeared once I disabled smart sync, have been using dropbox since then, just not the "smart sync" function.
There's a lot of "relevant information and details" in this thread 14 pages of details. The support interaction has had nothing of support about it. It's been you guys saying this is a problem with the OS, not caused by smart sync, not related to dropbox at all. We are annoyed and uncool about this situation because it has been handled poorly to say the least.
Jane Your response is insulting.
How have you NOT attributed this to dropbox yet? There are dozens of posts around the internet of people not having this issue until enabling smart sync. I made absolutley 0 changes to my system except enabling smart sync and then the probelm started. How in the world could you possibly push that off as anything else? And then it is furter confirmed after I disabled smart sync that the problem went away. Stop blaming something else and just accept the fact you guys screwed up, and have been screwing around on this issue for the past year. I've got degrees in computer engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science. I have a better understanding of how software and technology works probably better than most of your support team. So dont talk to me like I dont know what the hell I'm referring to or like I dont know how to troubleshoot and diagnose an issue.
I also have absolutely zero confidence in your colleague. He responded to me saying the same exact thing you said a year ago on this forum, "However for the time been I am afraid that you will need to make the files local to be able to preview". HE DOESNT UNDERSTAND MY ISSUE EVEN AFTER I CLEARLY EXPLAINED TO HIM THIS WAS ON EVERY FILE ON MY COMPUTER EVEN OUTSIDE OF DROPBOX! He also doesn't understand how a Mac system works since he had zero idea what I meant by quicklook and preview. I dont want him working my case anymore, move me to someone else who actually knows how a mac works.
Jane has to be a bot. It's just the same gaslighting in every single post, and it boils down to what tech support has been telling customers they don't care about for decades: hmm, dunno, must be your other software/your hardware/your stupidity. Not our fault! Thanks for the money, sucker!
I "solved" this problem by quitting Dropbox and going back to relying on my Mac hard drive with physical and cloud backups, and archiving old files onto a NAS server which also gets a cloud backup.
Dropbox hasn't gotten a penny from me in more than a year (this issue is actually several years old). It's very clear to me that Dropbox's leadership has actually decided they just don't care about losing Mac customers because there aren't enough of us and sorting out why their product doesn't work for us isn't cost-effective. So they just send this bot in to perform "tech support theater" in which somehow we can never quite give "her" enough information to convince "her" it's anything Dropbox should bother looking into.
I don't pay to be treated that way. And Dropbox obviously didn't care that I left.- Well I was going to buy the business advanced for me and 2 other people to get the unlimited storage but because of this issue and how it’s still not been appropriately handled, I’m going to Drive Stream.
I need an answer to this.
Just to reiterate what I said in a previous post. Dropbox is well aware of exactly what the problem is. There is no need to waste your time emailing back and forth or screensharing to describe the problem.
That said, they actually do have a solution. Not a very great one (which is probably why they don't roll it out to all users.) But after emailing back and forth with them and explaining my problem and calling out their insincerity, I noticed that the problem was suddenly solved on my account and that of my coworker's. Our dropbox will now show previews for images even when they are in the cloud only.
The problem is, it doesn't perform very well. It takes a really long time to download a lower resolution image and desplay the preview. But it does work. More importantly, it no longer disables quick look for the rest of my files that ARE downloaded.
My guess is that this isn't a solution they can send out to everyone, for some reason or another. But it does seem that if you give them enough greif, they might enable this feature on your account.
Take a look at this screenshot to see exactly how this works.
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
- Yes I have already received a reply from original guy (who still had zero help other than “yup it’s a problem but you still need to make files local”) and a reply from someone else who immediately sent me a list of items to troubleshoot. Right now I’m waiting for him to reply on if he still wants me to troubleshoot even though I can easily remove the issue by disabling smart sync.
- Jane
I have hit and miss performance with previewing cloud files in Finder. It looks like it works alright in the new Dropbox App. I'm guessing that is what the official solution will be to this problem.
- Walter
Hi all!
If this is not too much to ask, could all the affected users log a ticket with our team providing all the relevant information so we can assist further (while being able to drill into your account specifics)?
Thank you all for your cooperation and patience on this matter.
PS: You can submit a ticket through this page directly:
