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Forum Discussion
The "online-only" option has disappeared from the context menu on Windows 11.
I am also having an issue with Smart Sync in Windows 11. I started in Windows 11, this is not a migration issue. I have a business account with over 1 TB of data and 30k+ files. For months I have been seeing a message in my desktop client: Dropbox is experiencing some issues. Before opening online-only files and folders, right-click and choose Make available offline.
The option to make the files Online-Only again has wholly disappeared from the desktop client preferences and the menu options when I right-click on the file or folder. The only option provided is to make my files available offline.
What I've done to troubleshoot the issue:
1. I downloaded and reinstalled the desktop client without uninstalling first....didn't fix a thing.
2. Uninstalled the desktop client and reinstalled it.....also didn't fix a thing. In fact, when I reinstalled it, the set-up wizard gave me the option to start with all files as Online-Only, and the files that were set to Make Available Offline before the uninstall/reinstall still show as Offline. Meaning the uninstall/reinstall did not make them Online-Online again.
I can't preview, open, insert, or attach any file unless I make it available offline. This is causing a HUGE disruption in how we work, administrate file storage, and share files. I do not have 1TB+ storage available on my laptop. The whole point of having Dropbox is for Cloud Storage. We are paying for a product that is not working properly.
What is the fix? And when will Dropbox have it available?
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi Admin_InsightSeminars, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Just for clarification, are you experiencing this behavior for any file you're trying to open on your device, in any folder?
This will help me to assist further!
Yes, that is correct.
I received an email from support suggesting it's an icon overlay issue, but that doesn't explain why the option has completely disappeared in the preferences in the desktop client. Online-Only as a check box option in the preferences has nothing to do with icon overlays as far as I'm aware. I'm not missing an icon, Online-Only is gone. If you look at the image below taken from the desktop client options, there is no option offered for Online-Only. This is something that disappeared with the latest update. I was having issues with files not responding when I selected Online-Only, but now Online-Only is gone altogether, and I haven't installed any new programs. I don't even allow my rig to auto-update. I update manually just for this reason. It seems that Dropbox has made some changes that aren't working as intended and it's very frustrating that they just don't say that.
I'm going to go through the icon overlay steps, perhaps the changes Dropbox made are that we can only access Online-Only now through an icon and it's no longer a check-box option in the client preferences.
And still it's anyone's guess if this will fix the issue of having to download files before I can preview, edit, share, or attach them. Dropbox put out a message for this issue in the Desktop alerts which support didn't even address in the canned response. You can see the message in the Activity Alert window below.
If you know a way to get me to the next tier of support so I can get past all the canned solutions in order to get to a fix that addresses the actual issue, I am all ears.
- Walter
Hey Admin_InsightSeminars, sorry to jump in here and thanks for the additional details.
Could you please let us know your ticket ID in order to look it up in our system?
