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Hundreds of background processes, new windows opened
Dropbox seems to be stuck in a loop, and opening hundreds of background processes. This consumes all my CPU capacity, then eats at my memory and disk space. See attached pics. There also seem to be w...
I appear to have resolved this, by uninstalling, removing my local dropbox folder and re-installing (and allowing the subsequent download). Now I only see 4 Dropbox related processes, and system performance is normal.
It appears that the issue was actually related to firewall changes in my network. Apparently Dropbox was spawning processes that would then wind up waiting indefinitely, instead of completing and exiting. Apparently there is no check for system load, number of child processes, etc. And the question remains as to why the Dropbox servers are now showing up on my block list.
While this fix worked for me, if folks have a significant amount of data in their Dropbox, they may be more reluctant to try it.
Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey Minas S. and UnableToUse, thanks for nudging us on this thread and sorry to hear that you're also having trouble with high CPU/RAM usage.
I'd be more than happy to help look into this with you, and to ensure that I have a better visual of what you're seeing, could you send me a screenshot (without any personal info) of your Task Manager (Windows) or Activity Monitor (Mac) showing these processes?
Keep me posted!
Having un-installed Dropbox so I can actually use my computer, I no longer can generate the desired images, sorry.
I can share the method I used to make my computer responsive enough to un-install Dropbox:
PowerShell> Stop-Process -name "Dropbox"
I really hope you can fix this, as I'd prefer not to have to migrate to another service (with all of my family and all of our devices).
- Same problem for me. Hundreds of processes launch, and provoked a disk failure. Now I have to pay to recover all my working files. Had to uninstall it. Please fix it quiclky
- Lusil
Thanks for your swift reply, UnableToUse.
I'd be more than happy to send you a ticket so as to have a better look into this with you, if you'd like.
Just give me a shout and I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Cheers!
I appear to have resolved this, by uninstalling, removing my local dropbox folder and re-installing (and allowing the subsequent download). Now I only see 4 Dropbox related processes, and system performance is normal.
It appears that the issue was actually related to firewall changes in my network. Apparently Dropbox was spawning processes that would then wind up waiting indefinitely, instead of completing and exiting. Apparently there is no check for system load, number of child processes, etc. And the question remains as to why the Dropbox servers are now showing up on my block list.
While this fix worked for me, if folks have a significant amount of data in their Dropbox, they may be more reluctant to try it.
I uninstalled Dropbox, deleted all associated files, and re-installed with severe restrictions on which files even smart sync to my computer. 30 minutes after those files are indexed, and I haven't seen any odd jumps in activity.
After Dropbox said it probably wasn't them (Also, since the desktop app isn't running when you experience high CPU, the cause could be related to an external factor, such as a third party app (for example, I can see that you're running a few that show up at the very top of the list under Power usage). For this reason, I'd recommend looking into other third party apps that could be causing this.) I went to a Microsoft store's help desk to see if they had any ideas, and they advised me to re-install windows 10, which I found even less helpful. I'm thankful for other users who had less trepidation about being drastic with the program and their files. Would have taken a lot longer to re-install the OS.
What was especially odd is that other members of my team that have access to many of the same files I do, and have not experienced the same issues. I had access to a computer from someone leaving our team recently, and was able to use dropbox on that computer fine. All the programs installed are the same on both computers, but I only had the issue on the one. I would guess that some security setting was messing with Dropbox, or that there is a conflict between competing updates. Hopefully it doesn't happen again...
