Stuck "importing photos..."

[James P.45]

My dropbox is set to auto import/upload my iphone photos, which it is doing. But it keeps telling me it's "importing photos..." and the menubar symbol is constantly the camera symbol that usually comes up when its importing. It's like its stuck.

Any help?

System: Macbook Pro, OSX El Capitan.

[John G.139]

Based off of this page ( https://www.dropbox.com/help/72?path=syncing_and_uploads ) I am trying a permissions fix now. It is still indexing. Here is a shell script I made with their code to do the permissions fix with a variable for your dropbox location since I changed mine to a larger hard drive on my Macbook. 

#!/bin/bash
dropboxLocation='/Volumes/Macintosh HDD/Dropbox'
checkCommands(){
    sum=$a+$b+$c+$d+$e
    if [[ $sum == 5 ]]; then
        echo "All commands completed successfully"
    else
        echo "An error occured. Please check your script."
    fi
}
chflags -R nouchg "$dropboxLocation" ~/.dropbox
a=$(echo $?)
chown "$USER" "$HOME"
b=$(echo $?)
chown -R "$USER" "$dropboxLocation" ~/.dropbox
c=$(echo $?)
chmod -RN ~/.dropbox "$dropboxLocation"
d=$(echo $?)
chmod -R u+rw "$dropboxLocation" ~/.dropbox
e=$(echo $?)
checkCommands

Dropbox is resyncing my entire Dropbox file system. This could take a while. I will report back if this helped or not.  

[Peter P.49]

Same issue!

[John G.139]

I banged my head on this long enough to give up. Dropbox is going to have to fix this issue in an update to the product. My solution to not go nuts, was to install the Dropbox app on my phone and shut off sync on my computer and have my phone push the pictures up. 

[Peter P.49]

Finally got my issue resolved.  Pleas share.

I just upgraded to Dropbox 3.12.6 today, having previously been on 3.12.5, Yosemite OSX, newest Macbook Pro. My photo syncing issue started around the time of the upgrade to Yosemite in December.

I have my own Teams account, since I use a lot of space and have a group that I run. So, I won't be leaving my own Teams account.  Scratch that idea.

Every time I plug in my phone to my laptop with USB, both Photos and Dropboxs Camera Upload auto-start.  My Photos import would complete, and I'd watch the Dropbox Import Progress as it stalled every time on different images from week-to-week, never once completing.

Curiously, at the same time I was encountering this Dropbox Camera Upload syncing stuck issue, my Apple Photos App kept reporting two photos that I had saved from a text message as not having been imported (despite importing them many times).  The photos in question were from my sister, but perhaps were corrupted in some way?  I fixed that Photos error with Photos by deleting the two photos from my phone. A third popped up as not being imported (from the same text messages), so I deleted those too. After several times plugging and unplugging my phone, ignoring Dropbox still stalling, I verified that the Photos app was no longer showing non-synced photos.

Next, I unplugged my phone, quit Dropbox, restarted Dropbox plugged in my phone a number of times.  I didn't do any special terminal commands or uninstalls, or complete re-indexing of my Dropbox Account (too long at >1TB). 

I was disappointed that the first time the Dropbox Camera Upload still stalled, but it looked like it was making progress.  Also, when I quit and restarted dropbox, I saw more photos had synced even after the Import Progress window had indicated it had stalled.  So, I repeated the process several times, and it appeared to make more and more progress on imports.  The import progress would hang another 2-3 times, but finally it finished after that.

Now everything appears back to normal.  So, my suggestion - look for a photo that isn't importing in Photos, and delete it until Photos indicates all is well.  Then repeat and restart Dropbox and Camera syncing.

[Paul H.]

FYI I have formally logged this issue with Dropbox support who has since confirmed it as a known issue they are investigating. They had me install a new version of the client but the problem remained. So no solution yet beyond restarting the app, but it is known and the support agent promised to update me though he could not give any schedule. 

[John G.139]

@Peter I find this very interesting. I shut off iCloud photo sync for 2 reasons. 1. I don't want my photos popping up on Apple TV for everyone to see. 2. It is redundant having a copy of them in photos and in Dropbox. I am doing a full sync now and turning Dropbox sync back on to see if the problem clears up and see if there is any correlation between the two. I don't think there is a connection between the programs, rather, photos app gave you visibility of what was holding your sync up. Will post again when I am done with this test. 

[John G.139]

Ok I tested it and I am in the same boat I started with. Complete sync with Photos and Dropbox hangs at less than 1 second remaining. I shut off photo syncing and it will stay off until Dropbox publishes a fix. 

[Paul R.59]

There doesn't seem to be a way to directly reply to Shayne B, but I wanted to let everyone know that this problem started for me after I freshly installed El Capitan and all other apps (inc Dropbox).  I didn't have the problem on the old install, so it is not something that will be resolved with a fresh install.  I hope Shayne sees this.

FWIW, the Photos syncing and Teams solutions didn't help me either.  I'm not going to mess around with Safe Mode, since Dropbox seems to be working on a fix.  Hope it comes soon.

[Shayne B.1]

Peter's solution worked for me.  Opened my iPhone in Photos, did an import, showed I had 3 files that it couldn't do anything with.  Opened Image Capture, deleted those 3 files, Dropbox now works just fine.

[John G.139]

Shayne B., Out of curiosity, what version of OSX are you running?