Dropbox freezes and crashes my file explorer.

[currentj]

Hello,

I am having trouble with dropbox working through my Windows file explorer.  For some reason, within the last week every time I try to navigate to one of my dropbox files the file explorer crashes and I have to force close the program.  I can open files from the specific application.  For instance, if I open Word and then open a file from word it will open, but if I try to open the same file from the windows file explorer it freezes.  I have tried to uninstall and reinstall.  Any other suggestions/solutions?

[grossdpg]

Thanks @Walter.

Ultimately that didn't do it. The most I can discern is that whenever I even so much as select the root Dropbox directory (while navigating its parent directory), the process monitor indicates a ton of file system activities are engaging recursively through the entire Dropbox directory and everything within it, down the file tree. Essentially, when just the root directory is selected by left-click, Explorer.exe is running a CreateFile operation and a QueryDirectory operation, a QueryRemoteProtocolInformation operation, and a CloseFile operation (and maybe some others) for every file and folder under it. The intermediate operations (QueryDirectory and QueryRemoteProtocolInformation) seem to be outliers--they're only called on Dropbox paths, not on any other path. Each of these takes microseconds individually but because there's a million or whatnot operations taking place recursively through my entire Dropbox (with ~100K files and ~6K folders) it seems to slow the whole thing down.

It is strange. But it seems like an interaction of the Dropbox install with Windows itself. Maybe some network setting. I'm not really sure where to take it from here--I can ask ChatGPT what these operations mean/do but I'm pretty at a loss for whether this is the issue, whether and how it can be safely changed, and how to make it stop.

As is Dropbox is painful to use, and I'm forced to think about alternatives.

Thanks for your help.

[Hannah]

Thanks for the additional info here, @grossdpg.

I completely understand where you're coming from and we appreciate your feedback.

Should you want to continue investigating this issue, though, just out of curiosity, can you check if disabling Overleaf makes any difference?

[grossdpg]

Thanks @Hannah. Happy to try something if you have ideas. Unlinking Overleaf unfortunately didn't fix it. Still befuddling. I'm guessing this is a pretty isolated problem/not many people have it (though some seem to have) otherwise there would have been many more threads about it than the few I've found. It may just be what it will be.

[Megan]

Hey @grossdpg, let's try one more thing, shall we? 

Can you try uninstalling the app -just make sure that any third-party apps are disabled while you do so- and then re-installing it, just to see if you notice a difference? 

[mhasteley]

Did you try the fix mentioned a few messages back re: converting hardlinks to copies? (Alt-H under the Accounts tab of Preferences in the Dropbox app). Had similar behaviour to you (affecting any of the cloud provider folders - for me that's OneDrive and Dropbox) and that did the trick (though annoyingly it seems to come back when an app update happens).

[Y Fong]

Hello,

Since Dropbox updated to the latest build 202.4.5551, my Windows 10 has been freezing as soon as Dropbox is launched. I have installed all Windows updates. I know it is Dropbox that is causing the issue because as soon as I uninstalled Dropbox, the problem goes away. I tried to re-installed Dropbox but the problem shows up again.

Hope Dropbox team can address this as soon as possible. If there is a temporary fix, I would love to hear.

Thank you and best regards,

YFong

[Melman]

Since the automatic update to version 202.4.5551 - none of our five computers at work will sync. All running Windows 11. We have just rolled one of the computers back to version 197.4.7629 and it is now syncing fine again. 

[Walter]

Hi there @Y Fong & @Melman - thanks for your reports.

Can you please let us know approximately how many files you're syncing locally on the affected device(s)? 

Also, are you running any 3rd party apps that are monitoring, syncing or backing up your files? 

Any additional information or screenshots are more than welcome! 

[Melman]

Hi Walter, I have around 7TB of data that's set to online-only. I sync very little to my computer. I've been working from Dropbox like this for many years with no issues. This latest update has killed all syncing. No 3rd party apps running. I did all the suggested troubleshooting and the only thing that worked was reverting back to version  197.4.7629. Which subsequently Dropbox just auto-updated again to 202.4.5551 and killed my syncing again 🤦‍:male_sign:

[Walter]

In that case, you can reach out to our support team directly for further assistance with account and device specific information @Melman 

Let us know if you have anything else to ask or add in the meantime.