New named Dropbox structure

[t4ngml]

I am a user of DropBox Business, on Windows 10.

Last week, I suddenly realized that the shortcuts to some of my Dropbox folders were broken.

A quick look learned me that the structure had changed.

While I used to access my folder through:

C:/User/{username}/Dropbox (COMPANY NAME)/, I can now find them at:
C:/User/{username}/{COMPANY NAME} Dropbox/MyFirstName LASTNAME/

Now, both structures seem to remain while the first one is now a hidden shortcut (although I can't seem to see where it links to).

So that I don't really know where my files actually are.

Is this change documented anywhere?

Thanks

After a couple of days, I realized this happened to all of this Dropbox Business users across the company, Mac and Windows, and that it messes up with backup strategies.

I didn't find anything about this new structure in DropBox's changelog.

[WCdesign]

another update:

after automatic update, dropbox changed settings by it owns from local to online only. So basically without our permission it deleted all our company files we had locally! now for several days we are unable to access files properly as sync is so slow as most likely most of companies have similar problems.

For "file hosting service" company, changing file structures, deleting client files stored locally, and forcing other nonsense is absolutely insane! 

[marathon]

We too rely on the local sync as being the primary reason for using Dropbox. If you find a solid alternative, let us know; we are looking, too.

I'm not sure why Dropbox is pushing so hard to move everybody to the cloud, other than resources (pushing files back out to sync to clients). But when they charge hundreds of dollars per year, that's what we're paying for. There are lots of cheaper cloud storage solutions that are as good or better than Dropbox if all you want is cloud storage.

[effixx]

Same.  Completely blew up the entire week.  Instead of finishing projects, we're realizing we need to reinstall dropbox and re-sync Terabytes of project files and media because the folder structure update broke our Dropbox volumes.  Insanity. 

[krutsch]

We are in the process of moving everything over to Google Drive. Our Agency is already using Google Workspace, so the cost part was easy.

It took some experimentation to understand all of the security settings, but we make the cut-over on Wednesday the 21st - the day before our business account renews. We are using GoodSync for cloud-to/from-local sync (i.e. working files), which syncs directly to/from Google Drive, on-line only (which Google calls 'streaming') will sync correctly without two local copies. In the end, I am hopeful that our cloud storage will be easier to use and will definitely use less HDD space.

Good luck!

[marathon]

I had written:

We too rely on the local sync as being the primary reason for using Dropbox. If you find a solid alternative, let us know; we are looking, too.

I'm not sure why Dropbox is pushing so hard to move everybody to the cloud, other than resources (pushing files back out to sync to clients). But when they charge hundreds of dollars per year, that's what we're paying for. There are lots of cheaper cloud storage solutions that are as good or better than Dropbox if all you want is cloud storage.

We will see if the forum moderator deletes this comment, but sync.com looks like a very direct competitor, and worth a look. If Dropbox is sufficiently worried about them that they delete this comment, then it significantly increases the likelihood that I will check them out. Or find an independent community discussion forum for this topic; I'm sure there is one somewhere.

[krutsch]

---

@marathon wrote:

I had written:

We too rely on the local sync as being the primary reason for using Dropbox.

... But when they charge hundreds of dollars per year, that's what we're paying for...

---

Ha ha... we are paying hundreds of dollars per month for our team members.

I would have kept paying, I guess, but this reorganization change was the final straw for us.

I *still* don't understand Dropbox's motivation for forcing this change on their business customers, but I no longer need care.

[MattS91]

Our entire Team Folder structure has been destroyed by upgrading from Business Standard to Business Advanced.

All Team folders were converted to Shared Folders and one admin account is now the owner of them all, however they have no access to move them to the Teams Space.

This was not communicated by Dropbox as a possibility with the upgrade and has resulted in hundreds of hours of work to recreate everything including re-sharing hundreds individual files with external stakeholders and removed every link we have shared.

Dropbox Supports only advice is to copy the contents to new team folders but as I've mentioned to them it break all sharing. They haven't provided any adequate solutions and refuse to escalate this issue.

We are extremely unhappy as an organisation.

[Megan]

Hi @MattS91, I am sorry to hear about that!

Could you send me your ticket number reference from your communication with our Support, so I can have a look into this and locate it on our system?

Keep me posted! 

[marathon]

I signed up for a free account with Sync.com and have sync'ed content to three devices very easily. It is an obvious copy of Dropbox -- the original Dropbox before the Great Reorganization -- which is exactly what I want. Initial experiments all are positive, including modifying a file on one device and seeing it sync to others, and moving the entire repo to an external drive, which worked seamlessly (Pause Sync, move repo, Resume Sync: doesn't get any easier than that).

Next step is to test multiple users. So far I am impressed, but there are a lot of subtle things around sync'ing that Dropbox historically did very well, so it will take some time to see if there are bugs in Sync (like getting on and off of airplanes with a laptop, modifying the same file on different devices, etc).

[LAUBlab]

yes this is a desaster!

it breaks thousands of 3d files that rely on linked texture data. it is near impossible to change them, even more not in 30days!

i was very happy with dropbox over the years, but this is very very unusual in industry for a file hoster.

we will worst case have issue an refund and have to search for other more reliable services.

what is the sense to rename the main folder, in just switching the order of the 2 name parts?

it seems to make no sense at all beside this breaks all file paths, destroying years of work here.

please note that not only the file content but also the file structure is part of the data we own, that you change them, also on our pcs , we do not see as an ok intervention.