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Forum Discussion
Ubuntu stuck in "Starting ..." and no Dropbox folder location is shown
Hi,
my symptoms are very similar to what other posts have reported, after connecting a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 installation dropbox is stuck in status "starting ....".
I raised the `fs.inotify.max_user_watches` as suggested in several threads, but frankly, my older laptop with Ubuntu 24.04 and far more files is happy at default 65536.
However, when opening the graphical settings on the stuck machine, in the `Sync` tab there is no folder location configured, and clicking on "Move" does not open a selector to choose another location.
The $HOME/Dropbox is formatted as ext4, not encrypted, and mounted upon startup.
=> What could prevent Dropbox from knowing the Dropbox location after installation ? How to manually set it as a workaround ?
Yours,
Steffen
Hi,
re-installing simply won't help. I now have a solution I can describe to help others with the same issue:
0) since $HOME is on XFS file system, I need a separate ext4 partition to host the Dropbox folder. What worked in the past was to mount an ext4 partition directly on ~/Dropbox.
This does NOT WORK ANYMORE, since dropbox tries to rename that upon start/installation.
1) I had to have a temporary $HOME on ext4, which then happily created ~/Dropbox and do the syncing.
2) Then I can use dropbox preferences/sync to move ~/Dropbox to a subfolder e..g ~/ext4/Dropbox
3) Then I can mount my normal $HOME on XFS, and mount the separate ext4 under ~/ext4/ with the ~/ext4/Dropbox folder.
So for your engineering team, please test ~/Dropbox being a mountpoint of an ext4 partition, and/or lift the requirement/restriction to a specific filesystem for ~/Dropbox.
Yours,
Steffen
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi sneumann, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
If you're not on a Dropbox Basic plan with more than 3 devices connected, could you try an advanced reinstall of the app using the steps in this link?
This will help me to assist further!
Hi,
ok, I cleaned any traces of the existing installation. Interestingly, there was no `/var/lib/dropbox`. The Ext4 `$HOME/Dropbox/lost+found` folder was not owned by my user but by root. Fixed now.
For installation I used the current dropbox_2024.04.17_amd64.deb.
There was no opportunity to `Apply any selective sync preferences you had before the reinstall`, and also no opportunity to `Select the Dropbox folder location` because nothing was asking the question.
The remaining dropbox daemon was downloaded and started, and I have the same situation as before, with `dropbox status` saying "Starting ....", no Dropbox folder configured under Preferences/Sync tab.
I have temporarily disabled firewall, security and apparmor, which didn't help.
Anything else to try ?
Yours,
Steffen
One more thing, running dropbox under strace I found
`[pid 8614] rename("/home/sneumann/Dropbox", "/home/sneumann/Dropbox (Old)") = -1 EBUSY (Device or resource busy)`
This totally makes sense, manually running mv gives the same:
```mv Dropbox Dropbox-old
mv: cannot move 'Dropbox' to 'Dropbox-old': Device or resource busy```
since there is a dedicated partition mounted:
`/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /home/sneumann/Dropbox type ext4 (rw,relatime)`because the rest of $HOME is sitting on xfs:
`/dev/nvme0n1p6 on / type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota)`=> Could that be the culprit ? If yes, how to setup partitions if I want xfs for `/` and `/home` ?
Yours,
Steffen
