iOS, UIDocumentPickerViewController export, and Dropbox 38.2.2/38.3.4

[rmaddy]

My iOS app uses UIDocumentPickerViewController to export files from my app to a user's Dropbox account. This has been working just fine. It worked for me just a short time ago with an older version of the Dropbox app installed on my iPhone. I just updated to the latest Dropbox app (38.2.2 and now 38.3.4) and now when I tap on the "Save to Whatever" button at the bottom of the screen, the file is not saved at all. I've had a few users of my app report the same issue as well.

So it seems that the latest Dropbox app is no working on iOS when used to export a file to Dropbox using UIDocumentPickerViewController. Importing from Dropbox works just fine.

[Brendan D.]

Hi Rick,

Yes, that does seem to be the case. At least I can point customers to this discussion as a bit of proof that it's not just my app 🙂

Thanks for initiating this thread.

Brendan

[rmaddy]

I have verified that version 40.2.2 of the iOS Dropbox app resolves this issue. Thanks.

[Brendan D.]

Excellent! I can also confirm this issue is fixed.

[Brendan D.]

Have you noticed that in iOS 11, sometimes the Dropbox --- Personal item is disabled and you can't upload a file to Dropbox? I don't see that myself on my devices, but I have had a few customers tell me they can't use the upload function to upload a file to Dropbox. It works for other cloud storage services such as iCloud Drive and OneDrive.

Here's the simple code I use to present the controller to the user:

UIDocumentPickerViewController *pickerViewController = [[UIDocumentPickerViewController alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:self.selectedFilePath] inMode:UIDocumentPickerModeExportToService];

pickerViewController.delegate = self;

[self presentViewController:pickerViewController
  animated:YES
completion:nil];

UIPopoverPresentationController *popoverController = pickerViewController.popoverPresentationController;
pickerViewController.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationPopover;
popoverController.barButtonItem = sender;

If you think I'm doing something wrong, I'd love to know.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Brendan D.]

Answering my own question, it seems that first launching the Files app and viewing the Dropbox --- Personal folder there solves the problem for other apps. No longer disabled after doing that. Two customers of mine confirmed that was the case. Each of them though it was a bug in my app though.

[CC_JF]

Hey there — Dropbox iOS dev here. Thanks for following up.

I‘m somewhat surprised that UIDocumentPickerVC had Dropbox grayed out — we’ve never seen that in testing. If you hear this from one of your users again, could you ask them if they had ever opened Files.app directly before? There’s some issues with Domains (a concept that allows for multiple containers per app like accounts) and Files with respect to how it handles state changes. We’re pretty sure this will be fixed in either a future iOS update or if we can find a better workaround.

Thanks again, and sorry for the inconvenience!
Jeff

[David M.301]

This has happened to many of my users and it happened to me after I installed iOS 11.  I am getting one star reviews for it as well.

[Brendan D.]

Thanks for the reply Jeff.

It was one of my customers who noticed that it began to work after they launched the Files app first. At least there's something I can tell my customers now.

[David M.301]

Yes, I shoud have mentioned that once the Files app is opened it works for me too.