Uploads get stuck

[michael campbell]

During the past few weeks I've needed to upload several 15GB .rar files.  Each time, the upload process gets stuck on 9 minutes or so remaining.  I have to refresh the browser and then start uploading again from scratch.  Usually the second time it works fine.

I'm using an up to date google chrome on windows 10 professional.

I notice quite a few people are reporting the same problem on this forum.  The help chat wasn't useful at all, basically suggesting I try again in incognito mode, so I can help them pinpoint the problem.  I don't think as a paying customer I should be expected to spend time troubleshooting the problem for Dropbox.  Surely they have server logs they can refer to for quickly identifying server issues?

[michael campbell]

Update, just tried again in incognito mode.  Now I get a black message popup at the bottom of the screen at 36 minute remaining saying 'you seem to be having internet issues, hang tight your upload will resume when you have a connection'

I don't have any internet issues, all other websites are working fine, as is my phone on wifi and netflix on my TV.

[michael campbell]

Just posted that, and the main dropbox page is still showing I'm having internet connection issues........hmmm, might be time to look for a better provider.

[Jay]

Hi @michael campbell, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Are you on a stable personal network, or a work network?

Do you have any proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router settings that could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains?

This will help me to assist further!

[michael campbell]

no, if that were the case then it wouldn't work on the second attempt.  The connection is a stable 300mb/s virgin media connection.

[Jay]

Are you experiencing this with any device on the same network when uploading the files?

Are you able to use the Dropbox desktop application to sync the files to your account?

[michael campbell]

I have one device (my workstation).  If it were device or network settings related, then it wouldn't work the second time, and also it works without issue for smaller files.  Just large .rar files are the issue.

I'd prefer not to install the application.

Would it be possible for you to escalate this to someone who can investigate the server logs for my account please?

[michael campbell]

So I decided to install the app.  And even though I chose the 'online only' storage,  It's now taking up 60GB of file space as far as windows is concerned, even though there's only 40kb on disk.  Windows reports I now have only 1GB of available space.  So I'm guessing this is going to be problematic for windows managed page filing, as it'll base the available space on free space rather than actual free space determined by size on disk?  

It's crazy, when I chose a different drive to keep the dropbox folder on, it took 10 minutes to move it!  It's only supposed to be a list of file names.  I only have dropbox to reduce disk space, not to double it.

[michael campbell]

It get's even worse.  After moving the 15GB file to dropbox via the app and waiting for the upload to complete, it appears in my local dropbox folder, but is not in the remote folder.

Another problem, I choose to hide all folders locally to free up disk space (because setting folder to 'online only' doesn't work.  It removes all of them apart from the one that contains the large .rar files!

What's happening here?!  It's terrible!!!

I guess the initial file move when I dragged my 15gb to the local dropbox folder, wasn't uploading, but rather moving the file from one local folder to the dropbox local folder.  I don't want this behaviour, it results in the file being in two place on the disk taking double the space.  I just want to drag it from it's original  location straight to the dropbox remote folder.  I don't understand why it's not doing this if I have the folder set to 'online only'.

[michael campbell]

I have dropbox set to 'online only' it doesn't appear to work, so I manually set it to online only by right clicking on each folder and choosing that option (windows).

I then drag a 15GB file to one of my dropbox sub folders and choose copy rather than move.  I expected it to begin uploading directly to the dropbox server, but instead it copies it locally to the dropbox folder and then uploads it.  This results in two local copies of the 15GB file.

How can I bypass it creating a second copy locally, and instead send it straight to dropbox (same as when using the website, which incidentally always fails with big files, hence me trying the app).