Dropbox sync never finishes: MacOS Monterey 12.6 onwards, Dropbox 176.4.5108

[hteran]

Hi,

My Dropbox keeps on syncing 6825 files since months ago, I tried removing and reinstalling Dropbox, no luck. It is not responsive and not usable, I checked similar problems on this forum, none of them helped. I appreciate advice. Thanks

[hteran]

Hi. Unfortunately this was unsuccesful: I moved away all folders except one, and the same error again, stuck syncing on a fixed number

I have no settings on firewall or VPN and indeed the same error happens no matter where I connect

Is there a way I can have a totally fresh restart of my Dropbox?

[Megan]

Hi @hteran, let's check one more thing: if you check the properties of your Dropbox folder locally, how many files do you see synced there? 

Is it more than 300K which is our soft-limit for the app? 

[hteran · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

After a few weeks break (of this problem and everything indeed during summer!), I came up with some inspiration and detected and solved the problem, Here I post because I think brings some useful info for others:

1- When reinstalling Dropbox, DELETE both:

1a- the  $HOME/Dropbox folder (which contains a .dropbox subfolder)

1b- the $HOME/.dropbox directory

Note the difference between the two paths, and both .dropbox dirs are evil for our purposes as they contain logs and stuff that otherwise will be taken into account for the updated instalation and prevents it to be a real "fresh start".

2- Only after doing this, Dropbox checks the requirements for synking et voilà! Seems I had surpassed the max number of devices (max 2 for free accounts like mine). Thing is that I only have my mobile phone and my work computer so I dig on the others. Apparently, the name of my computer changed in the last months, still not clear the cause. Could be because the central services of University took it to register and upgrade (second evil of this story), could be because the name dynamically changes depending on the network I am connected to (I have seen this before. Pending to check and definetly mark as "solved" this last issue of the computer naming, this is on me, I alert all users here (and the IT support of Dropbox to which I am very grateful for the help so far):

3- If for WHATEVER reason your computer that has Dropbox app and syncing changes name, Dropbox central station will register it as a new device and you will probably surpass the number of allowed devices, but what is more problematic: at least on MacOS12.x,  IT DOES NOT ALERT OF THIS  unless you doo a fresh re-installation of theDriopbox app (see point 1).

I hope this helps others, stay synced!

Hugo