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Forum Discussion
"Your account stopped syncing during an update" error on desktop app on Windows
I am on Windows 11, latest release and my Dropbox is also stuck on updating. The Dropbox version is the same. I am also receiving an error that I have not received before. I have stopped SnagIt, but ...
Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffJean361, did you all start having this issue after a specific update? What’s the Dropbox app version you’re running on your devices?
Finally, can you send me a screenshot of what you see, when trying to access your local Dropbox folder?
We have this exact same problem, except I'm not sure how they get to the error windows, ours has been stuck in:
"Updating Dropbox account..." since the update, no error no nothing, if we try to hit pause it just stays on "Pausing" does not do anything, if we restart its the same deal.
All our servers and every single users laptop is like this, this update literally broke our entire company, we depended on Dropbox for basically all company file collaboration and it has now been stopped dead.
Deleting and uninstalling then re-downloading multiple terabytes on 53 machines is not a solution and if we have to do it, were not doing it on Dropbox anymore.
Whom ever decided this update was a good idea should be fired, I know I'm really close to being fired due to this fiasco, i had planned for the update, just remake all the main IT accounts folders as team folders and move everything back to where it was but this is a whole other level of FUBAR.
You could have left the files as they were and just have all new files from here on follow the new design but this stupidity of force moving MILLIONS of files without an opt in for your customers is shortsighted at best negligent at worst.
Were running a business here, you cannot suddenly force change all folders and files locations without letting us do it manually and slowly, there's applications that point to locations on the Dropbox folder structure, apps that have specific links to file locations on servers moved to other folders and now are failing to backup or log data, throwing all kinds of errors, production servers are stopping because they are "unable to find application path" its a royal effed up train wreck.
Now there's dozens of employees who no longer have access to files, they cant find them because they have moved, their usual opening excel and clicking on the file no longer works because it moved location, and they are too stupid to understand they have to look for it somewhere else, our ticketing system basically crashed with requests overnight, seriously amateur hour over there guys, who's authorizing your production updates? an 18 year old that never took his it operations 101 class?
I have my entire IT staff currently scrambling for solutions, we have started to download Sync.com and migrating the critical files there and haphazardly restoring what ever semblance of service we can, I had to throw Dropbox under the bus to save my and my whole it staff's jobs, I've pushed for the company to stick with Dropbox for more than a decade, the unlimited space removal was a mortal wound I was trying to recover from, but this is just the final nail in the coffin.
Unless this change is reversed somehow were not going to rework all the machines to stick back on Dropbox, we were already looking for other unlimited alternative solutions, this basically sealed Dropbox's fate.
We were even exited about the upgrade because it was one of the few upgrades where Dropbox added useful functionality instead of useless "added value apps" no one asked for, then they go and do this.
We tried Dropbox, we really did, but you just don't want to help yourself.
Same problem here. Endless loops.
However, here's what's been working for me:
Uninstall the desktop app.Clear temp files. Delete cache, etc.
Reinstall app.
Log in, change to online only.
Go through the painful process of re-syncing (2Tb for us)
Remove dups that are no longer connected to account, conflicts, etc.
Seems simple but's its been working. My notebook (we have workstations and notebooks for mobile) converted fine but the main difference is that it was set to online only due to space issues. I wish Dropbox would have made that recommendation beforehand.
Hope this helps...
oh yeah and gotta love the "own name" folder, clearly whom ever thought of that did not think it through
our projects all have large fie names, once windows reaches 255 characters on the folder path funky things happen.
When dropbox went from D:\Dropbox to D:\Dropbox (Company name) it was a royal mess, we had to rename our company to W so the path was as small as possible, the space between dropbox and the (W) meant we had to rewrite all our existing scripts to support "spaces" in the path name, its funny how they think everyone is called "John Smith", now we have folders like "D:\Dropbox (W)\Cherry T. Chevapravatdumrong" (not a fake name, its a real person, google it), or better yet "D:\Dropbox (W)\Azucena María Lorena Treviño de los Ángeles" nothing automated scripts love more than super long folder names with lots of spaces and non standard characters
Now we had to rename EVERY USER to their system USERNAME because of course in true Dropbox fashion we cannot change the user folder name.
So now our folders look like: "D:\Dropbox (W)\AMLTrevino", users don't like it and all the collaboration tools now have these kinds of names, which is not ideal but at least the scripts work again.
Windows figured this out way back in windows XP, where your USERNAME is not the same as your name, because well, 95% of the names in the world are either too long or too complex for computers to handle efficiently, so then use a username.
Seems the person who thought of this at dropbox missed this class at school or has never worked an IT desk in his life, if he had he would have known Actual person names and working folders DO NOT MIX.... EVER.....
Oh and it will be lovely when the accounting lady leaves and we have to rename the accounting account to whom ever's new name comes along, we love spending our weekends editing and debugging scripts because dropbox doesn't understand the concept of usernames on working file structures.
Great job guys, well done.
5 days app still critically broken, still says "Updating Dropbox account...", so im going to go ahead and effectively assume this is a "were not fixing it" issue and moving along
