Delays and issues with syncing large files. App is behaving oddly, and gives weird messages.

[MandyShaw]

Hello

I have a set of sound samples/patches which I want to keep in my Dropbox account. Total about 23GB when zipped.

I have loads of free space in my Dropbox Plus 2TB account.

I have added the files (via Windows drag and drop) to an area which is set to Online Only from a SmartSync perspective. (I do not use Selective Sync at all.)

I started by trying to add the whole lot as one single zip file, 23.1GB. This was a disaster because every time my PC/internet connection experienced any sort of issue the sync upload started again from scratch, and it never got past 4.5GB. Why? Can't Dropbox keep track of an upload in flight & resume from the point of failure, if (as in this case) the file has not changed in the meantime?

So after a day and a half I tried again with 35 individual files, max size 1GB. Some of these have finally uploaded OK now, but the desktop app is giving some very odd and conflicting messages. Firstly it keeps saying 'Upload complete' against a file for ages (an hour or more) after which the file changes back to 'Waiting to sync', later going back to 'Upload complete', apparently randomly and without actually showing any sort of upload progress bar in between. All this without the file's appearing in Events or starting to be visible online.

Eventually one of the files genuinely gets there (visible from the Web and listed in Events, and with SmartSync doing its job and releasing the desktop space), but then the same thing happens again to get another file through, usually with 3 files listed as once as 'Upload complete' (and sometimes with another stuck on (always) 64MB).

Meanwhile I am working on other smaller files in a normal way and those are syncing absolutely fine and as I would expect.

Surely syncing a big file shouldn't be this hard? Or is it just the desktop app giving random incorrect information (which is hardly unusual in my experience)?

Thanks

Mandy Shaw

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Dropbox should be uploading in 4mb chunks and restarting for that last 4mb block. So if it failed at 4.5gb it should restart at that point when connection resumed etc. However, I am not sure if the 'online only' setting maybe distorts that? I'd be tempted to leave it local and then once uploaded change it to online only.

[MandyShaw]

Many thanks - you are absolutely correct, this is about 'Online Only'.

I have just done a controlled experiment using some other big files that had never been near Dropbox before.

The ones copied to an Offline folder behaved exactly as I would expect, including in the Dropbox app UI.

The ones copied to an Online Only folder uploaded fine, but the Dropbox app UI kept telling me that the uploads were complete when they were not (though an accurate outstanding byte count was shown in the bottom right hand corner).

This feels like a bug, where is the best place to report it please?