Won't stop indexing on Mac

[msheppard]

I installed the mac dropbox update and the application began indexing my files. It has now been stuck for the last few days. I can only access some files. Many are now only available through dropbox.com and not in my app. If I add files to dropbox.com they are added to the indexing queue of the desktop app, but no progress is made regarding indexing. I've tried signing out, quitting, uninstalling, and reinstalling. I've seen similar threads, but no solutions have worked for me. Any help is much appreciated.

[effinsyv]

I've been following this thread for weeks now (as I'm in the same boat). I'm really not excited about having to reformat and re-install MacOS from scratch. I'm hoping someone from DB support will contact me. Best part is I opened a ticket on Sunday night. Their response (Monday afternoon US Mountain time) was that someone else would contact me to help sort it out. Here I am 2 days after I open a ticket and no real response from DB. I'm really surprised they are handling the support of this as badly as they are. I really hope to hear from someone to sort this out.

[Teddy73]

@effinsyv I experienced the same lack of support, as did many others.

I have been a loyal customer for over 11 years and I thought perhaps I would be given a few months free subscription, or some additional storage space for all the inconvenience. I didn't even receive a message with any clear acknowledgement of the problem.

Ultimately, I had to spend a lot of time working it out myself with pieces of information gained here from others experiencing the problem and my own abilities.

All I will say is that Microsoft One Drive and Google Drive are worth considering. They had no problems with macOS Ventura and Sonoma and the upgrade to File Provider, have most of the functions that Dropbox has, appear to be rock-solid, plus are less expensive.

[effinsyv]

I’ve been thinking about this actually as well. I have the free tier for google drive and it’s been working nicely. I also have OneDrive with my work and I kind of hate its integration (especially remote when I’m on my phone or iPad). DB has always played well with Mac and better than the others in my opinion. It might be time to think about a wholesale change at my next renewal (sadly next year). We have the family account and a lot of data between my wife and I to move to another service- which will be annoying but maybe better if they continue to work.

Thanks for the input. Really hoping they get their stuff together.

[effinsyv]

Latest update-

I all but gave up on Support this morning and wiped it all out. Here is what I did and it appears to be fully synced on Sonoma (Note: I haven't updated to File Provider again yet, but may try this over the next couple days if it stabilizes).

1. On my computer, I signed out of DB from the app

2. Quit Dropbox app.

3. Using an old app called App Zapper, I deleted the Dropbox app (this deleted almost everything in the system folders, which I think is crutial).

4. I copied the DB folder in CloudStorage to an external drive (for safety in case I couldn't reconnect my DB server folder).

5. Next, I deleted the DB folder in CloudStorage

6. I downloaded the DB app.

7. I went online and confirmed my online/offline choices and cleaned up anything that looked strange (I had a bunch of conflict sync files over the years)

8. I installed DB and launched.

9. I connected to my account and started re-syncing everything. It took a few hours, but now everything is sync'd and DB actually says everything is up to date.

10. I have not yet reset my Dropbox backups yet. That will be next and likely overnight as I backup my external drive to DB backup.

Next task will be moving to File Provider as I'm guessing it will have to be moved there at some point.

[effinsyv]

About an hour after I started the process in my previous message, DB support got back to me (after 2 days) with basically the same info, but using Terminal commands to remove the cloudstorage data and reinstall....Then they sent another email (literally 2 minutes after sending the instructions) closing my ticket. Apparently, they are very confident in their step by step. 

I'll continue to update as I go through the next steps, but it appears you have to blow DB away completely to get it to work properly...your mileage may vary...

[Konigi]

Dear fellow sufferers, I haven't written in a while. I tried different things over the last few weeks and finally decided to stop paying for Dropbox services and move to a combination of iCloud and external storage instead. I have been a user of DB for about 12 years, and a paid customer for at least 7. But we're really not getting what we pay for. At all.

I am not keen on doing a clean install: it is the atomic bomb solution to solve bugs. Yes, it works, but it comes with the burden to setup your computer all over again. I don't like it.

So last month, I tried DB's solution (offered by their tech support). I logged off from DB and did things like that, and it decided to download all my DB files from the ground up, which took quite a long time and created new folders, with all the duplicates. Of course my local storage space couldn't take it and I had to find space in the middle of it. Then I spent the last month worrying that I lost files in the process, which is the opposite of the purpose of paying more than 200 $CAD per year. I am manually checking the older folders and looking at whether there are files missing in the latest folders before deleting the old versions. This is not fun and I had other plans for my free time.

As I bought a new computer anyway, I decided it was time for a change. I will be using another cloud storage, and keep DB only for sharing folders with other DB users. I hope their free-tier offers enough space for that. But even on the new Mac, with the latest DB version using FileProvider, DB just doesn't seem to be working as intended. It hasn't downloaded all the files I asked it to download (I often have to ask it many times), its activity does not display what it is doing beside the abstract "syncing" (but what? for how long and what size? I don't even see the history of synced files, as it used to appear), and I also have duplicate icons for things like "offline-only". What an epic mess. And as others have pointed out, it is not the first time DB screws things up after an OS update.

I know iCloud does not have all the same features (I will miss versioning and the Vault) but it's for the best. And I am sure iCloud will get better by the years.

Thank you all for being on this journey with me for the past couple of weeks. I wish you will find peace some day among these times of trouble. Cheers!

[effinsyv]

So I've been running overnight and everything appears to be working.

My Question now is, What if I don't bother "upgrading" to File Provider. Is that a problem? Is there any real benefit to it other than having my dropbox files in the cloudstorage folder?

I'd love to hear some feedback from users or DB staff as to why I need to update (since it works now).

[Teddy73]

@effinsyv my advice is to upgrade to File Provider, its the new system required by Apple, if you stay on the old non-File Provider, it won't be supported and things will probably start breaking with new software upgrades on MacOS and Dropbox.

@Konigi I can understand your decision, we have all learnt a lot about how unvalued we are as customers here 😉

[effinsyv]

That’s what I was afraid of. Guess I’ll give it a shot this weekend.

[Uli_D]

Please, add a functionality to show the stuck files. When you know what they are, it is simple to move them out and back which resolves the problem. And it occures quite offten.

Thanks