New MacOS Ventura install on 8TB SSD, files show but do not open and syncing is slow

[rs1970]

Hello,

I just installed Dropbox on a brand-new Mac Mini M2 with 8Tb internal SSD. Dropbox for Business files are currently 2.3 TB.

Dropbox has been syncing very slowly. Some files show the green checkmark but also a cloud with a downward arrow. Other files have a cloud with a question mark and no check mark. See this screenshot: https://capture.dropbox.com/SycoaW2ogsekNMVb

What is going on? Using the latest beta, which no longer seems to show the sync transfer rate or what files are being synced.

I have ample space in the /Users/reda/Library/CloudStorage/ folder and fiber 300MB symmetric bandwidth.

Device: Mac Mini M2 Ventura 13.2.1

14 hours later and no reply from Dropbox support, so I'm trying the forum. None of the files are opening on the new Mac's Dropbox. Is this a known bug? Is there a workaround?

I know that it takes 2-3 days to fully sync. Dropbox is indeed shown as Syncing, but seems to be *not happening at all* or *dead slow* (7-17Kb/s). This is not shown in the Dropbox interface, but I'm using iStat Menus to measure bandwidth.

We depend heavily on Dropbox for publicly-shared links, but I am starting to look for an alternative that we could migrate to.

[rs1970]

@Megan I made no deliberate choice when I installed my new Mac Mini Pro M2, only migrated my user account from another machine using Apple's tools and re-installed Dropbox. iCloud Drive was turned on *by default* for Dropbox. I've now turned it off, but is this documented/known behavior? Is it considered a bug by Dropbox and/or Apple?

This painful experience confirms that Dropbox is underinvesting in the MacOS platform: not keeping up with MacOS-level security changes, being super late in migrating to Apple Silicon, leaving unresolved long-time issues like slow sync when restoring a Dropbox, etc.

In the mean time, Dropbox seems to be obsessed on upselling me new products that I did not ask for and do not need, such as e-signatures, etc.

If there was a simple way to migrate to another file syncing app, I would do it for our entire office. But it also seems that Google Drive has problems and Microsoft One Drive is… well… Microsoft.

[rs1970]

@Megan Just dropped out of beta. Dropbox icon is greyed out with "Starting…" message in Dropbox menu bar interface.

[Jay]

Hi @rs1970, could you try rebooting your machine to see if this helps?

[rs1970]

Updated on 21 June 2023:

Rebooting did not help.

It took about 2 weeks for everything to sync.

As of today, the iCloud sync icons show up on some files and folders, but not others. It still feels like some files are syncing twice: once on Dropbox, another time on iCloud, but that's conjecture as there are no tools that I know of to see what iCloud is actually doing, and I have no idea which logs to look at or how to interpret them.

Now on version 176.4.5108.

Still looking for alternative to Dropbox.

Two other Macs that have the full offline Dropbox files stored on external SSDs are still working with external file storage.