Linux Mint 20 : DropBox no longer syncing despite syncing icon!

[Iplicjian]

Hello all. I have followed the suggestions made by others but still I am not syncing. I upgraded to Linux Mint 20 yesterday and everything works as it should, except DropBox; a key app for me. I note that the LM version (which I re-downloaded yesterday in an attempt to solve this) is version 107.4.443 whereas the MacOS version is 108.4.453. Thsi information may have nothing to do with the problem but I mention it for information. 

Please help 🙂 

Thanks

John

[STrRedWolf]

tar xjf ./nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1.tar.bz2

If you get no responce, that's good!  Linux (like most Unixen) follow the "no news is good news" philosphoy on the command line.  If stuff printed out, then you got a problem.

Your next step after that is:

cd ./nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1; ./configure; make;

And since you're on Linux Mint:

sudo make install

You will need to enter your password.

[Iplicjian]

user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1$ make

make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

What am I missing here please ?

[STrRedWolf]

Run

./configure

Then

make

[Iplicjian]

Thanks. This is what happened :

user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1$ ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... 
configure: error: in `/home/user/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1$ make
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.
user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1$ sudo make install
[sudo] password for user:  
make: *** No rule to make target 'install'.  Stop.

What next please? (I am sure that there's a fundamental that I am missing. Why DropBox can't issue a clean set of instructions to support a paid-up subscriber, is beyond me. I am happy to do "under the hood" terminal work but not when it is critical to my work. I just need DropBox to provide a step by step solution. Thsi feels very much like I am asking favours from clever enthusiasts as opposed to the tech support team should should be all over this and by my side. 

Many thanks again st STrRedWolf whoever you may be!

John

[STrRedWolf]

Oh oh... here's the error that you should have stopped with:

configure: error: in `/home/user/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

Run this:

sudo apt-get install build-essentials

Then try this again from the nautilis-dropbox directory:

./configure

Let me know if there's any "error" lines like what I highlighted above.

[Здравко]

Hey guys,

Is there any problem installing prebuilded plugins, from here, instead build anew? 🤔

Download the debian package and run following while in directory where the package got downloaded:

sudo dpkg -i dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb

Update the file name, if has changed in mean time (take a look on downloaded file actual name).

Next, run following:

dropbox start -i
dropbox status

What is the result? Is there some problem now?! 😉

Hope this helps.

[Iplicjian]

user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1$ ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... 
configure: error: in `/home/user/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop/nautilus-dropbox-1.6.1$ 

[Iplicjian]

Thank you. Below is the result of running the commands in order. Drop box is now in the system tray and syncing. However, whether it will actually sync is anpother question. Looking at the "chnaged files" they look exactly like the ones from over two weeks ago when first this problem occured. I have continued to work on my Apple Mac and humdred of files have changed since.

user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop$ sudo dpkg -i dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb
[sudo] password for user:  
(Reading database ... 644545 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking dropbox (2020.03.04) over (2020.03.04) ...
Setting up dropbox (2020.03.04) ...
You are not running Debian or Ubuntu.  Not adding Dropbox repository.
Please restart all running instances of Nautilus, or you will experience problems. i.e. nautilus --quit
Dropbox installation successfully completed! You can start Dropbox from your applications menu.
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24+linuxmint1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...
user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop$ dropbox start -i
Starting Dropbox...dropbox: locating interpreter
dropbox: logging to /tmp/dropbox-antifreeze-bTVEyd
dropbox: initializing
dropbox: initializing python 3.7.9
dropbox: setting program path '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/dropbox'
dropbox: setting python path '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443:/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/python-packages.zip'
dropbox: python initialized
dropbox: running dropbox
dropbox: setting args
dropbox: enabling allocator metrics
dropbox: applying overrides
dropbox: running main script
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._constant_time.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/apex._apex.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/tornado.speedups.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/wrapt._wrappers.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/PyQt5.QtWidgets.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/PyQt5.QtCore.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/PyQt5.QtGui.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/PyQt5.QtNetwork.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
Dropbox isn't running!
Done!
user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop$ dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/PyQt5.QtDBus.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem.

user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop$ dropbox status
Syncing...

[Здравко]

@Iplicjian, Why are you trying build anew nautilus plugin? 🤔 I haven't noticed any complaint related to how Dropbox files appear on Nautilus! Or am I missing something?

Your problem comes from work of Dropbox daemon, not something else. Most probably you have some file/folder attribute somewhere in your Dropbox folder set inappropriately. Can you look into Dropbox folder for the exact files/folders which keep syncing and check what's wrong there? Just a simple "ls -l fileName.ext" can give a lot of info. Using Nautilus you can navigate in Dropbox directory tree. 😉

Don't lose your time with build which don't have any chance to help (even in theory).

Good luck!

PS: As Nautilus alternative in terminal you can use "dropbox filestatus". Just change to work directory to Dropbox and recursively check.

Oh... I just noticed another issue:

@Iplicjian wrote:

...

...
user@AsusA54C:~/Desktop$ dropbox: load fq extension '/home/user/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-107.4.443/PyQt5.QtDBus.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem.
...

---

This mean you have too much files in your Dropbox folder and the current system settings forbid following so much in one process! Usually your files can get in sync initially (at application start), but later some of them will stay out of sync, till next application launch. To fix this either remove from the local storage some of the folders not in use so your files count can fit in the limitation or increase the limit as noted in the error message. Replace the number '10000' with your files count with some reserve added. You can see current limit using:

sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches

To be sure that most basic attributes are fine for your Dropbox directory execute following:

sudo chown -R "$USER" "$HOME/Dropbox"
sudo chattr -R -i "$HOME/Dropbox"
chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox

If the problem persists still, try following for fast recursive search:

(IFS=$'\n';for i in `ls -R1 ~/Dropbox`; do if [[ "$i" =~ ":" ]]; then cd `echo "$i" | sed "y/:/\//"`; echo -n "In folder: "; pwd; dropbox filestatus; fi; done) | grep -vi "up to date" | grep -vi ".dropbox:" | grep -vi ".dropbox.cache:"

Change Dropbox folder location everywhere above, if you have moved it.

[Iplicjian]

"Why are you trying build anew nautilus plugin?"

Personally, I have no idea! I am merely doing what I am told. Nautilus means nothing to me. Previously Dropbox was syncing fine. I upgraded to Linux Mint 20 and it simply ceased syncing despite the icon suggesting otherwise. I would doubt that there are files name problems as my Apple Macs have no problems; not does our Win10 PC; just the Linux Mint 20 box. 

I was really hoping that someone here would have resolved this problem. 

Happy to start over if anyone things that this would resolve. 

Ready (again), to do what is necessary but please DropBox tech team, let's get this sorted. Thanks in anticipation !

John