Dropbox not uploading/ uploading v slow

[jeanzbeanz]

I have dropbox installed on multiple devices and they all work fine, except it has suddenly stopped uploading on my windows laptop.

I moved a load of photos off my phone onto dropbox on my laptop last week and only a handful have uploaded.  The icon in my tray says it is syncing 405 files and has 36 minutes left.

It's definitely not a problem with my bandwidth and I have checked the settings to make sure that dropbox isn't set to a low upload speed.  

I have tried pausing sync and restarting, I have tried closing dropbox and re-opening.  I have also tried restarting my laptop and it uploaded 5 files then stopped again.

I am a pro user and have only used 50% of my available space.

Can anyone help?

[Bennett H.]

That's weird.  When I cancelled my subscription on December 26th (after buying a monthly subscription on December 23rd), I got this message:

This email confirms that you've downgraded to Dropbox Basic.

You'll keep the additional space and features of your Dropbox Pro 1TB until Jan. 22, 2016.

None of your files will be deleted once your space is reduced. However, if you're using more than 2.75 GB of space, you won't be able to add new files to your Dropbox.

Did yours say something different?

(Note that my email also starts out by saying "You've downgraded to Dropbox Basic", which makes it sound like the downgrading takes effect right away, but later on it says it doesn't take effect until Jan 22.)

[Jocelyn R.1]

I got this:

Remember that after downgrading to Dropbox Basic, your account will drop from 1.05 TB to 54 GB of space. Your Dropbox has 79.26 GB of files, so you won’t be able to add new files or sync changes until you make space.

But I didn't continue as I didn't want to loose my pro account just yet (just in case).  Instead I set a reminder for me to cancel on the 2nd.

Cheers

[Bob B.56]

Hi Ed,

I just spent over a week trying to upload about 130GB on two computers, probably about 12 hours per day each. I'm sitting here looking at a sync that says it has 1.2 HOURS remaining. This is a Pro account. Pro means professional in that I and others are using this for business. I'll be switching to something else soon.

Here are a couple of things that you posted here:

• I spoke to some team members and since these are quite complex issues as it involves a lot of variables,
• Can you try uploading your files through the desktop client instead of the website?

Please, we are professionals here. Don't insult us.

fwiw... Bob

[Ed]

Hi Bob,

Using the desktop client for large uploads is definitely recommended. Make sure you have the latest stable version (can be downloaded here:https://www.dropbox.com/downloading)

As well as that, please make sure you check if there's any bandwidth limit here: https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/faster-sync

You should also run tests on different computers, connections (physical locations too) and ISP to ensure the issue is not on your end. Nicole has pointed that although only Dropbox was being affected, it happened to be on her end: "it looks like my issue was on my end after all." 

Additional steps that have been shared on this thread before:

"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.

Our support team would be happy to analyze your logs (this is PII that can't be shared on the forum, that's why you'll have to write into support) and see if there's something wrong.

If you write into support, please include the following information 🙂

- 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?

"

Alexander's feedback on this thread

"FINAL UPDATE - PROBLEM SOLVED!

Uploading to dropbox continuously at speed of 1300 - 1600 kb/s for more than 24 hours.  

SUMMARY OF CHANGES:

Dropbox Bandwidth Preferences: Download Limit set to 150 kb/s.  Upload set to "No Limit"

Macbook Energy Saver Settings: "Computer Sleep" set to "Never" and "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" box was Unchecked.

Hope this helps some of you find peace of mind."

[Nicole V.9]

Just because my issue was on my end doesn't mean there aren't legit issues that many other people are having.  Once again, you're repeating the same troubleshooting tips available on the help pages and that have been told to us in this thread many times.  Clearly those things aren't working for others.  They need new suggestions.

[Jocelyn R.1]

I can myself sometimes upload at 1600 kb/s but this is CRAZY slow when you have a Gigabit internet connection from one of the best service provider in the world, hardwired to a powerful brand new iMac 2015 with SSD.

Last time I checked it was 2016... not 1998 😉

Cheers

[Bob B.56]

Dropbox does not seem to be scalable.

I received a number of responses to posts I made to this thread. But I'm really stuck with the conclusion above. Allow me to review.

Use the Dropbox Desktop client.

1. I'm using two Dropbox accounts and I'm told that I cannot use the desktop client for both; it works very well for the free account which has fewer files.
2. The Pro account is for the entire 😧 drive which is MyDocuments. MyDocs has thousands of files and is 200+GB in size; how is that going to work?
3. The Desktop Client is a duplicate of whatever gets dropped there, correct?
4. Someone mentioned Hashing and Compression on the client side; how will that affect upload speed, especially for a .zip file that is already compressed?
5. I'm using six threads on GoodSync to upload. Does the Desktop Client multi-thread?

IP Upload Speed. This is a stale argument at best.

1. I can verify with Speedtest.net that I have 25MB+ download and 10MB+ upload.
2. I routinely transfer very large files up and down to Salesforce.com.

Simple math.

1. The very best upload speed I've seen here in this thread is 1600kbs or 200KBs (.2MBs), this is abysmal compared to 10MBs.
2. I have seen better than that but only for short times.
3. MyDocs is 142GB, almost none of which is pictures or graphics.
4. At .2MBs it will take at least 8.2 days to upload all of it.
5. I synchronize at least 250MB per day. It will take 21 mins to do that. I do this all at once, and no, I don't want it to happen all day long. It currently takes 6 mins to do it remotely.

So, offering 1TB for $10 per month is great but only if you can actually use it.

Dropbox does not seem to scale.

 ymmv... Bob

[Ricardo T.3]

Pretty disappointed my self in the speeds. I had a 10GB file that I wanted to upload to Dropbox. I fired up an EC2 instance and upload speeds are near 500mbps. (I was moving some files on S3 to Dropbox, just to keep a copy) I downloaded my S3 bucket, zipped the file and uploaded and the speeds were a complete joke. I attached a screenshot at the fluctuation in speeds and it's bad. I tried the same thing with Google Drive and it very consistently kept a speed of about 300mbps up. 

[Feeras N.]

Same problem. It is killing me.

After changing the upload bandwidth preference to no limit, I am limited at 54.5 KB/sec!!!

It is depressing seeing the time left as "3 days" for study material I was hoping to get to before that.... Totally defies the point. I might as well mail my HDD around everywhere.

It really sucks!