Unable to upload a file using Safari

[Mark Siegel]

Suddenly, dropbox.com isn't allowing me to upload a file if I'm using Safari as my browser.  It works fine using Chrome.  Any ideas what's going on?

[Daphne]

Hello there @Mark Siegel, I hope you're having a good Monday so far!

Just to make sure we're on the same page, can you let me know what issue you're running into with uploading via Safari?

Do you not see the option to upload files, or do you get an error perhaps? 

Please send over a screenshot if you're getting an error, as the visual is always helpful.

Keep me posted!

[Mark Siegel]

Thanks for your response, Daphne.

Unfortunately a screenshot won't help!  Everything looks normal.  I have the regular list of options under "Create new file": Upload files, Upload folder, New folder, New shared folder.

If I click on "Upload files" or "Upload folder", absolutely nothing happens.  No error messages at all.  Expected behavior would be to get the dropdown menu allowing me to navigate to the file or folder I want to upload, but I never get it.  (Both "New folder" and "New shared folder" work normally.)  I know I have plenty of storage space left, so that's not the problem.

And, as I said in my original post, if use Chrome to go to dropbox.com, everything works properly.  It's only in Safari that it won't work.  Now... there was a recent update to Safari in the past week -- Version 14.0.1 -- which I'm currently using, and the problem appeared only after the update.  Is it possible the Apple has done something in Safari that Dropbox is no longer compatible with? 

[Mark Siegel]

UPDATE!

I have discovered that this is not ONLY a Dropbox issue with Safari.  It's a problem across multiple web sites with the latest Safari update, 14.0.1 (latest update compatible with the Mojave OS), that it does not allow uploads.  On my Gmail account, clicking the "attach" icon does nothing -- just like the Upload files on Dropbox.  Doesn't bring up a window to select files to attach/upload.  Same with my AOL email account.  The "attach" icon doesn't function.

Using Chrome, it's perfectly functional on every web site I've tried.

I just spent 2-1/2 hours on the phone with Apple Support, including talking to a senior advisor.  They had me go through every trouble-shooting procedure they could think of, and ultimately we just uploaded a huge system data file to submit to the Apple engineers.  I'm betting they'll conclude the same thing, that there's something in the latest Safari update that's disabling the upload buttons.  When -- or whether -- they'll get around to fixing it... it's anybody's guess.

Mark Siegel

[Daphne]

Thanks for your update here @Mark Siegel!

I am sorry to hear that you've had such a big problem with this, but I'm glad to hear that you managed to get down to the root cause at least.

From what you mentioned too, it seems that Dropbox is working fine in your Chrome browser for now too, which I'm happy to hear.

If you have any questions or other issues in the meantime, please don't hesitate to give me a nudge here.

Hope you have a great rest of your day Mark!

[Mark Siegel]

Thanks, Daphne.

I have also found other reporting the same or similar problem in the community.  @Shelby W.  is one of them.  Also @trishmennell , who responded to Shelby.

I responded to @trishmennell :

I'm thinking it's a possible bug in the latest Safari update.  I was on the phone for 2-1/2 hours with Apple support yesterday trying to troubleshoot, and could not find a fix.  We sent in a system diagnostic report that the Apple engineers will look at, and I have a callback scheduled for today.

I also suggested calling Apple Support to report the problem, and I'd like to encourage other Dropbox users who experience the same problem to do the same.  If Apple receives a number of reports of the same problem, that may help Apple realize they have a bug in Safari, and hopefully convince them to fix it.

[Daphne]

Much appreciated @Mark Siegel!

We'll keep this in mind too if there are any other similar reports in the future. 😁

Thanks again!

[aglencross]

I'm having the exact same problem. And yeah, it's across multiple sites. Anywhere where I used to be able to upload files, I no longer can in Safari, it just acts like the "upload" buttons are nothing but text. Chrome will let me do it. How do we get Safari to fix this? It's kind of a giant pain in the butt, honestly.

[Daphne]

Thank for joining the discussion @aglencross, I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with this too!

If you want to, you can reach out to Apple Support to see if they can assist with this.

Most likely, they might suggest upgrading to the latest OS version for your computer (and therefore update the Safari version), but they may have some troubleshooting that you can try to resolve this.

Sorry that I can't be of much more help than this, but please let me know if you have any questions - cheers!

[aglencross]

Actually, I found out elsewhere on the web from other people experiencing similar issues on other sites, that, rather than upgrading the OS, the best solution is to reinstall the old operating system and NOT upgrade to Safari 14. It has something to do with Flash, is affecting pretty much all websites that allow one to upload files, and it seems like Apple has no intention of fixing it. Kind of bad news.

Worse, I took all the above steps, which took hours, and then got an Apple message that I needed to update some files for security reasons. I made sure Safari was unclicked as one of the updates, waited half an hour for my machine to come back up, and found that Safari 14 had been reinstalled anyway! So now I'm back to square one.

One positive note is that I've found drag-and-drop uploading still works through Safari. It's just the buttons that say "Upload Files" or "Attachment" that no longer do anything and may never again.

In summary, Apple is the culprit, but I'm hoping websites affected such as Dropbox will do something to address this issue.