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Forum Discussion
PDF preview using Windows EXplorer
This is for my work account. We use smart sync at work.
Using Windows Explorer if I open a folder I have never been to and there are PDFs present. I will then click on said PDF. A preview pops up in the preview pane within windows explorer. However, once i click on another file, if I click back on the initial PDF the preview pane remains empty. The previews do not come back by restarting windows explorer, or pdf, or PC. The only way for me to get them back is to open and save the document, which is not an option.
- Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Hi MarcASI, thanks for reaching out to us.
Could you send me a screenshot (without any personal information) of what you're seeing, so that I can have a better visual understanding of this?
Could you also let me know if this .pdf file is Smart Synced as online-only or local, when you try to preview it?
Looking forward to hearing back from you!
If i click to preview an item that is not synced It will show a preview of the PDF. if i then click somewhere else, that file becomes synced. if i click a synced file i get no preview. image below file ending in 00001 is a file i have previewed before, 00002 is a file i have not previewed before. The 00002 does show a preview, for now. as soon as i click elsewhere and click back that preview is gone, and it will sync for me automatically.
- Jay
Hi there, could you try reinstalling the Dropbox desktop application to see if this helps? Is your Windows device fully updated on all security patches and so on?
- Lusil
Thanks for confirming that for us, MarcASI.
Could you also try the following steps in the exact order listed? Maybe they will do the trick.
- Go to the Dropbox icon in your system tray.
- Select the avatar icon on the top right corner of your Notifications panel.
- Choose Preferences...
- Navigate to the Account tab.
- Click anywhere in the window under the tab.
- Hold down the 'Alt+H' keys.
- Click on the Fix Hardlinks button.
If you're asked for your computer's login credentials, enter them, and then wait a bit to see if Dropbox resumes syncing.
If you don't see any improvement in behavior, try the same steps again, but this time, click on the Fix Permissions button.
Let us know how it goes, cheers!
So not only did this solution not work. It made things worse for a day.
It no longer shows the icons for what is synced and what is not synced which was very useful. I have been using smart sync and liked those icons. No previews for any file. It seems to have reverted back after about 24 hours.
I can confirm I've seen the same issue on two separate machines the past week.
All files are online-only and when I click one, it previews normally. It downloads the file and changes the file to a green tick (locally stored, selective sync). After the file has been stored locally with the green tick, it will no longer be previewable. The preview pane is blank. If I copy-paste it to a different folder however (documents, downloads, etc), it previews fine.
The only workaround I've found is to right-click the file/folder, select Smart Sync and change it back to an online-only file. This however only works once as once you click it again it will download itself again and store it locally, cycling the problem.
Is there anything else we can try here?Same!!! Help!!!
- DaphneThanks for all your updates here everyone!
Just to confirm, if you make an online only file local through the right click menu (right click > Smart Sync > Local), does the thumbnail show correctly?
Is it only while opening an online only file by double clicking it, or by opening directly from another app, that you no longer see the thumbnail when the file becomes local?
Keep me posted - cheers!I'm still having the same problem based on all of the feedback suggested ine conversation so far
As you can see I have the preview pane option on, but when I single click on the file, nothing shows up in the preview pane for PDF's and Excel files. Please help!!
I have been grappling with this exact issue ever since I set up a new laptop and installed Dropbox. Searched everywhere on the web, and this finally worked! I hope this helps someone else. The key to this is actually SIGING OUT of Dropbox. I did this by right clicking on the Dropbox icon in the taskbar, selecting the circle with my initials at the top right, clicking on "preferences", then selecting the "account" option at the top. Then you will see the little box that says "sign out" next to your account name. Then I uninstalled Dropbox and reinstalled it, and signed in during the setup process. BTW, I have everything now set to download locally. I don't know if that makes a difference, but it worked! Good luck.
I have the same problem on Windows 10 using SmartSync.
I have a lot of big PDFs stored in my DropBox.
As long as the PDFs are in the cloud (grey round icon with the white cloud) I can see PDF previews.
When I open a PDF file, it get's downloaded, and it just shows the Adobe Reader Icon. No more Preview.
So after opening a file it gets downloaded on my computer (green round icon with white chechmark.)
In Adobe Reader I activated the option for PDF previews in Windows Explorer.This works for files that are not in my Dropbox.
This bug is really annoying, because I need to browse a lot of folders with huge PDF files
Opening them to see their content takes very long.
It would be nice if Dropbox could preview .tif image files.
