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.

[Simon W.37]

Example Screen shot from one file showing how its attachments (xrefs) have not been found.

Weirdly one file was found. 

Two files were picked up from the wrong jobs (arrows) just because the destination files had the same names (frankly worse than not picking up a file at all).

It is strange however (having looked into it myself now) that some files have been found with the new paths and I have no idea how that is happening when the root folders have changed.   All very mysterious but very concerning at the same time.        

[Megan]

Hi Simon, thanks for sharing more info about this! 

Essentially, what happened here was that your account changed from the old Team structure to the new one. At the moment, there's no way to revert back to the structure you had. 

However, if you're facing any difficulties locating content, or finding out more about this we're happy to help! If you search for file or folder names, were you able to locate all the necessary content? 

[AN26]

Yes. The structure changed and now the files can not be opened. They also created a personal dropbox name and a company name a split the files between the two. Can you tell me the difference with the green check marks and the gray marks? 

[Simon W.37]

Hannah,

We will manage.

I noticed last night that the old file folder is still there but as a hidden "short cut" to the second level (critical) file structure.  To the other person on this chat I suggest you set "show hidden files".  This may help you to locate your files.

Unfortunatey one of the machines in our team  is stuck in "dropbox is updating " mode now for over 24 hours. 

Please advise what we should do.  Is it OK to uninstall DB and re-install? 

Thanks    

[Simon W.37]

[Hannah]

Hey @AN26, so the difference between the files with the green check mark and those with the cloud icon is that the ones with the green check mark are available offline, while the other ones are 'online-only'.

This is our feature that turns files into placeholders, available only when connected to the internet, to help you save hard drive space.

You can just right click on them and choose to make them available offline, so they can sync to your computer again and you'll be able to open them.

And @Simon W.37, can you try to just reinstall the app, without uninstalling it first, to see if that helps?

[BC-InOregon]

This same thing has just occurred to our company on the Saturday of labor day weekend.  The amount of problems this is causing us can not be overstated.  This is a disaster and your response is extremely callous to the problem Dropbox has caused without seeming to have a clue to the problem.  How can we unwind the file structure change?  It said in another help item that the administrators would be notified of this change.  I was never notified.  It just happened and now I have to work all labor day weekend to try to not have a total break down of our company work.  Please help us to understand how we can fix this problem.  It is not helpful, it is terrible.

[KWANHO]

It appears to me the business account is updated and personal named folder is added to the root folder. 
This creates the below problems : 

1) Our office team used to send across folder path in whatsapp for quick file sharing, with the added peronal named folder, all files has unique path and cannot be shared efficiently. 

2) Our team uses programme like Rhino / Indesign, which one file will link to another file, like the material mapping, or link to a illustration etc. With the added personal named folder, my colleauge now have trouble to open another rhino / indesign file, as all the links are wrong. It limits our team ability of sharing working file across. 

I don't see there is any benefit of adding a personal name folder as the root folder for the dropbox, and it creates a lot of problem for office using dropbox as their server and sharing work file. If someone needs a personal named folder, they can simply open a folder as they want at anywhere, which is under the team's control, rather than a compulsory change. I strongly recommend to revert back the version WITHOUT the personal named root folder. I believe this issue also happened for many other offices, and as a user we are looking for alternative platform to solve this problem. I hope Dropbox can review this asap. 

[kaelmh]

We are experiencing the same issue, our head file is preceded with the name of each user, so it's different for everyone. As a result, when one user works on and saves a file, the link will be broken for the next person who opens it as the filepath has the previous user's name associated. We are having to relink every time a file is opened (using Vectorworks and Adobe Indesign software). 

Our office is split between Windows and Mac users - is the symbolic link applicable to both, and would it work for this issue?

[Leatherfoot]

Recently the business portion of Dropbox now has my folders under a new directory as my user name and I need to open / uncollapse that in file explorer every time I want to view my files and folders. This added step every time is annoying. Any idea why this happened and if there is away to revert? I did some searching and may be related to teams. I am the Admin / Owner and my user type is Team Admin (no idea if the team part is the issue or how to correct).