Unlinked Dropbox folder after restoring mac OS from Time Machine.

[mrmrtno]

Hi there

I've been searching for a while, no solution in sight:

After restoring mac from time machine, most things worked as before, dropbox was re-linked (had to remove mac and link again, did not link itself).

Now the mac is linked but not to my dropbox from the restore, it created a new, second folder and tries to sync with data from web dropbox. Now there are 2 dropboxes and none works properly.

Problem is: 

The old one has all data but is not linked. It shows up in finder like a volume with dropbox icon as before but it says: "This is an unlinked Dropbox" and shows an option to delete it.

The new one shows all files as zero kb, so it does not download anything, I can't open any file there. It shows up in finder like a regular folder (folder icon).

Going forward I cannot use it anymore as I can't modify or add anything. 

I already unlinked and relinked multiple times. Re-installed dropbox. Now I'm stuck.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Martin

 

  

[Megan]

Hey @mrmrtno, welcome to our Community!

Let's jump right into this. Would you mind checking into your app's preferences, and specifically under your Account tab to check if your account is linked there?

Provided that's the case, then what do you see when visiting the Sync tab? Where is your Dropbox folder located?

It'd also be most helpful if you could share with me the app's current syncing status too.

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

[mrmrtno]

Thanks a lot Megan

account is linked correctly (at first after restoring though, I accidentally linked with my other, dormant account; then I unlinked and deleted that dropbox folder, then relinked with my main account and as mentioned had to unlink my mac since it did not recognise it after restoring and I am only allowed 3 devices)

SYNC TAB

shows as follows

 

and allows me to change location of the folder, currently this:

/Users/M/Dropbox

And that seems to be where the synced, but "hollow" (zero kb) version is.

The real, full, old, but un-synced dropbox seems to be treated like a volume, can't find location in finder, so I can't point dropbox there and I read that I need to (or Dropbox does) create a new sub-folder wherever I point to, so I can't do that because I can't reach the level above the folder…

SYNC STATUS

says files are up to date – this refers to the new, hollow one and even the last file that was officially synced properly is zero kb when I go there (> show in finder). I just discovered though, that opening it seems to download that file and then I can see it (not zero kb anymore).

But I can't do that for all 7000 files, right…

Hope that helps and we're getting closer…

Thanks again

M

[Megan]

Thanks for the info @mrmrtno!

Got it! Initially I thought that the new Dropbox folder was empty. However, it sounds like you can indeed see your content inside your Dropbox folder, but they are zero kb, right? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. 

Also, based on what you described your content might have synced locally as online-only. If you try to follow these steps, in order to change it to available offline, does that work?