Dropbox Finder Extension on Mac Resource Consumption

[dropitoverthere]

Since upgrading to Big Sur, I have started noticing Dropbox Finder Extension occasionally spawning multiple instances and consuming tons of resources.  This ends up causing my mac to become unresponsive.  It seems like this is a bug, and I would love to know the best path to submit a bug report.

[Lusil]

Could you have a look at this article, which mentions a few ways to tackle high CPU usage, and let me know if any of the troubleshooting suggested helps?

[LHM1]

I have too many Dropbox Finder Extensions too (though not as many as the other user). I have read the article Lusil posted and none of those situations apply to me. I have just installed Dropbox on a new MacBook Air, M1 chip, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, Running Version 11.4 of Mac Big Slur.  Why are there so many Finger Extensions? Most of my Dropbox files are online, I just have about 700 files synced locally. 

[Jay]

Hi @LorraineM, 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?

[LHM1]

Hello Jay, thanks for your quick reply. I'm on Dropbox Plus. I do have 4 devices connected: iMac, Macbook (new), iPad and iPhone. Also, just to reiterate, I did a brand new install on a brand new computer. Knowing this, do you still suggest I do an advanced reinstall? How could anything have gone wrong in such a new configuration? Just wondering. Thanks. 

[Jay]

Since you're on a Plus plan, there isn't any issue with device limits.

An advanced re-installation with admin permissions would still be helpful, even if it's a new computer.

Keep me updated with any progress!

[marksc111]

Dear Dropbox,

I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of complainers. This endless spawning of 'Dropbox Finder Extension' processes has been an issue for at least 2 years, so I find it hard to believe this is this first you've heard of it. Please don't act all surprised. It occurs EVERY DAY I use my Mac, and your team won't have to go through a specific set of steps to reproduce the issue, i'm positive of that, because this bug is not one of those hard-to-find edge cases—these steadily-multiplying resource-sucking processes start spawning almost immediately after logging in. Just use your Mac for a couple of hours, then type 'drop' into the Activity Monitor search box and prepare to be horrified at your terrible software spreading like a cancer.

Please don't pretend this issue is new. It's not. How this bug, which eats hardware resources and makes our Macs run slower and hotter, can be left to fester for over 2 years, is beyond me. Dropbox used to make good software ~10 years ago (at least on the Mac), but that was a long time ago and how things change. I'm not blaming your Mac dev team, they're clearly under-resourced, weighed down by having to work on things like the awful desktop app I never wanted and will never use, and the other ill-advised projects stealing development resources as DP desprerately tries to diversify (whereas if you put those resources into making your core product better, I'm talking best in class, and stop it with that other nonsense that no-one cares about, I'm sure you'd get a lot more marketshare.) DP management has neglected its core product, which was, once upon a time, the most reliable and easiest-to-use file sharing service. It's such a pity.

FYI I'm running DP on an 8 core Intel Xeon iMac Pro with 32gb RAM on the latest OS. If I didn't need your awful software to do my job, I'd uninstall it right now. Get your house in order!

[boxerdropper]

Similar issues here, although happening much earlier than Big Sur: the CPU load can be high at times even though no syncing is taking place. On two MacBook Pros, one running Mojave 10.14.6 and one running Catalina 10.15.7, I regularly have 4-5 DFE processes running, and this even after quitting the Dropbox app. Their cumulated RAM usage is not negligible.

[Wvp]

I agree, the multiple finder extension also happened on my machines. The nr. 1 fix for every problem is always "Advanced re-install", but it does not fix this, it also does not fix high memory usage. Just look a the posted screenshot in this topic.. Dropbox uses 1030MB of memory for a system with 700 files stored locally and probably doing nothing at that time.

Although.. for an application that uses embedded Chromium it does not seem that strange it uses a lot of resources. When running Dropbox you are essentially running a small Chrome Browsers session just for the UI.. 😉

[PassTheSalt]

It's been over a month since anyone posted in this thread and I, too, am having this issue on a MBP that less than a year old. Crazy that DB has abandoned it. <tsk><tsk><tsk> What's a better alternative? A nephew worked for Box for a while, and I think I still have that account. And there's Google. Is there another other there? (DP, feel free to chime in on your better competitors.

[chefrogi]

for what it's worth, I'm getting the same multiple spawned processes issue with Google Backup and Sync and OneDrive finder integration.