Dropbox not uploading/ uploading v slow

Hi everyone,

 

We're really sorry to hear about these issues :(

 

We did have connection issues with some recent builds on Windows that could explained part of your issues.

If you are on Windows, please make sure you are on build 3.8.8 or upgrade here https://www.dropbox.com/downloading

 

For those of you who only noticed the difference recently on 3.8.8, the best place to comment would be: https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/200210355-Desktop-Client-Builds?sort_by=recent_activity

 

This can help us determine if the change is related to this update :)

 

For those who have seen this issue longer, I'll try my best to answer your questions and concerns.

 

It's a bit tricky to diagnose speed issues as there are lots of different components, including:

 

- the desktop application's bandwidth settings (what speed you choose for the upload/download limits)

- your geographic location, particular ISP, and service plan

- the route your ISP provides between your computer and Dropbox servers.

 

It's also important to distinguish between the speed your ISP advertises (typically the maximum possible, not an in-practice average) and the speed "speed tests" report (usually calculated using the speed test server located closest to your geographic location) from the actual speed of the ISP-provided route between your computer and Dropbox servers. If you are far away from the Dropbox servers, if the route of the connection to the server suffers from congestion, if you're using wi-fi or ethernet cables, there's a lot of things that could explain why you experience slow speed.

Additionally, most consumer ISPs provide 1/10th the upload speed compared to advertised download speed and some ISPs may throttle sustained connections.

 

A very simple potential fix is to restart your internet connection, typically by rebooting your modem. Depending on your ISP, this might switch the route between you and Dropbox' servers and result in faster syncing. It may seem too simple to be true, but it has worked in the past :)

 

Two things that could be relevant as well:

- The speed the Dropbox app is showing is an aggregated speed of hashing, indexing and uploading so it also depends on your computer performances for example.

- The speed the client is displaying is in KBps (kilo bytes per sec) while ISPs (and speed tests) often display speed in Mbps (Mega bits per sec) it means that you have to multiply Dropbox' speed by  125 to compare it with the ISP's/speed tests.

 

Unfortunately, we cannot diagnose speed issues based on speedtests such as the ones you can find on the internet, but a good thing to check to dive deeper, would be to try to upload two files of the same size; one via the website and one via the desktop application (one at a time).

 

If the upload via the website is way faster than via the desktop application, I'd definitely recommend writing in to support at https://www.dropbox.com/support and let us know the exact name of the files you tested.

- Go there https://www.dropbox.com/Account/security and tell us which computer you are using 

- Tell us who is your ISP

- Tell us about any anti-virus you might have

- Finally, tell us about your connection. Via wi-fi or via a cable?

 

I hope this helps.