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?

[Jeff N.3]

We might as well just close this thread. (If such a thing is possible) It is obvious Dropbox doesn't want to answer this question. Frankly I could throw a baseball blindfolded at Dropbox HQ and hit a software engineer in the back of the head that could answer this question in 15 minutes. Its the same reason you wait 10 minutes to check out at Walmart. Not enough resources have been devoted. It is almost certainly a problem of economics. If they deployed enough EC2/S3 resources then things would speed up, but that would cost money. We can only hope that the cost curve for their architecture cheapens faster than the cost curve for end-user internet bandwidth. If it doesn't, we are all in for some great disappointment.

[Colm K.]

Hi, same problem here - Dropbox app (pro account) on Mac syncs around 100x slower than LAN upload speeds, as measured by www.speedtest.net. I contacted the Dropbox help via chat, and they basically denied that such a problem existed, and said to wait indefinitely. They really should fix this, or at least admit that the problem exists. Very bad for a paid service.

[Matt W.6]

I have just signed up to Pro. I have added a 200GB folder and it is taking forever. Details here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/communities/public/questions/204350765-Dropbox-Pro-sync-upload-is-in...

[Encore P.]

6 Months using Dropbox. 4 PC computers from three different locations

4 hours to upload 100M of files. COmputer slows down massively as Dropbox sucks up RAM and other resources.

Takes 30 minutes to index files each time program launched.

Have super-high speed ADSL at all locations.

No other problems for any other PC or internet useage.

Have checked all dropbox technical suggestions (bandwidth at maximum in preferences etc.) to no avail.

Impossible to understand how/why Dropbox can justify charging for a service - ONE SERVICE - that does not work properly.

I mean if Dropbox exists to provide high-speed access and storage to files but a large part of their users cannot use high-speed access... what's the point of their existence?

And where is/are the solutions coming from Tech support for this fundamental, basic isse? Zero.

We have no choice but to find alternatives because for us, this "service" is more a pain than a service/Help.

We have no choice because.... as it stands... dropox simply does not work.

Crazy, but true

[Jeff N.3]

It is unfortunate really. I haven't had the problems you have had with RAM/CPU usage, but do I have the bandwidth issue fairly often. 

Almost every test I have run, using different file types, settings, computers, ISPs, operating systems, etc points to a bottle neck on the Dropbox side. Either an artificial software bottleneck or a real hardware one.

Of course, Dropbox would never admit to this. They would never admit that they are either A) purposefully limiting transfer speeds or B) not spending enough on bandwidth/hardware.

They have no choice but to ignore us in some sense. This is why every time someone complains about bandwidth they give you the boiler plate set of steps on how to "solve it" -- and they are steps that are OBVIOUS. (Checking ISP bandwidth, very DB settings, etc)

It also seems quite likely that they can't afford more hardware resources. Unless amazon is giving them an unprecedented discount on S3 storage and EC2 instances, just looking at the cheapest bulk-buy public facing costs of these services -- dropbox can't really make money once your account hits around 250-300 GB. (For the 1TB accounts) Again, not something they are likely to admit to in the near future. I guess our only hope is the hardware costs continue to fall and they find some efficiency gains in their software/algorithms to solve this issue. 

[Claire G.10]

Hi everyone,

We're sorry to hear about those issues with transfer speeds and RAM usage.

Regarding the CPU usage, do you think you could give our forum build a try?

It handles memory really well 🙂

https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/204961815-Experimental-Build-3-9-36

Let us know if it helped!

[Sean C.17]

This is a very serious problem that needs to be fixed. Over the past 3 months or so, my Dropbox sync takes forever (say, 20-30 minutes to sync about 100 small files). Slow syncing has also caused a number of other problems. For example, I run a program on a loop that updates a (tiny) file every 5 seconds or so. When dropbox takes longer than 5 seconds to sync this file--which never happened in the past--the program crashes, saying that the file cannot be accessed (it is as if Dropbox has the file open or temporarily write-protected).

I am on the verge of canceling my paid dropbox account and switching to another provider.

P.S. my bandwidth settings are both "no limit"

[Bill A.1]

I wanted to summarise a few points:

• Dropbox definitely synced faster in the past (~2 years ago)
• Storing over 300k in files renders Dropbox sync unusable
• There are no adjustments at the user-end to make sync/indexing as fast as it was in the past
• Dropbox seems to index for much longer periods of time
• Indexing process deteriorates OSX performance considerably

This latest experimental build has been pretty good the last few days. I love Dropbox, but overall the past 2 years the service has definitely deteriorated. It's been bad enough that I've tested other services, last year, to find a substitute.

I tested the following alternatives:

• Google Drive
  Totally unreliable (files skipped etc.), not much faster than DB, slowed computer down.
• Egnyte
  Slow to sync but more reliable, very ugly interface (at the time)
  Didn't get a chance to test high volume of files though
• Box
  Seemed to be the fastest at sync and very reliable
  Didn't get a chance to test high volume of files though
  Prefer Dropbox's more simplified interface and sharing options

[jayrol j.]

Very very disappointing. Slow uploads speeds here as well. Can't have clients download any folders bigger than 2gbs anymore.....I am a photographer, so sending high res files is not even an option anymore unless my client is willing to install dropbox onto their computer....Yikes. 

[Chris J.31]

I just paid for a dropbox account so I could move some big files around.  BIG MISTAKE.  I'm trying to upload a 50gb file.  You can't use the browser upload, it says the file size is too big. So I have to use the desktop client (on my mac) and use the Sync function. 

At this stage it's running at 96kb/s and estimating a 5 day upload.

Talk about ripped off!!!

Dropbox, you are rubbish