You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Dropbox files no longer inherit folder permissions
Within my Dropbox folder, I have sub-folders with different Windows ACL permissions. Up until recently, whenever Dropbox synced a file it inherited its folder permissions perfectly.
Now it no longer does. It overrides the folder permissions and sets all file permissions to something completely different - Full Control for admins and Read/Read & Execute for users.
Is there any way to get back to the old days - when Dropbox respected the inheritance of ACL permissions to all files in each folder?
I have a dropbox subfolder that is set up for sharing over a local Windows network. The folder and its parents are all set for sharing with a default of Full Access for "Everyone" on the network. If I create a file in this folder using Windows, the file will have proper NTFS permissions, both local and Network Share.
Any files imported into the folder through Dropbox, however, from, say, an Android device or a Linux machine, only inherit local NTFS permissions. The permissions for "Everyone" are missing. I have to open each file's permissions box and add "Everyone" to it for any other machines on the Windows net to see the file.
I've had this arragement for quite some time, and it seems like the permissions worked fine up until a few months ago after an app update. I've been pulling my hair out looking for solutions, but I am at my wit's end.
What is Dropbox doing differently when creating these files from all other Windows apps?
i'm running into this same issue with our server setup. never had a problem until recently and frankly it was a bear to debug and finally figure out what was happening.
glad to find others with the same issue.
i'm not sure what the solution is here. if we put the client on every computer in the office, it becomes a CPU/memory hog and total PITA to maintain.
the server-based syncing combined with NTFS permissions was a perfect solution.
i know there are NAS devices that sync with dropbox, how does this update affect them? i think they tend to use the API so not sure if they would have the same problem or not.
Walter wrote:Hi SLWelsh - welcome to the Dropbox Community!
Please elaborate:
1) As of what specific version was this change made, and why wasn't it highlighted in the release notes?
2) What else do you consider a "custom" permission? You mentioned two things, both outside of the Windows realm, POSIX and BSD, that wouldn't be in play for us, so I'd like to know all the possible scenarious you mean.
3) "May" be removed? Explain further.
What we've been seeing lately in isolated cases, definitely with files that have synced recently from one site to another, is users (in the Security permissions list of a given file in Properties) being removed and the list merely being left with SYSTEM and Administrators, or similar. We then need to fix this manually and hope it doesn't happen again.
I don't want to open a case. I just want to see this fully documented.
Same Issue! Thanks for posting, I have been pulling my hair out as well trying to figure this out. BAD MOVE DROPBOX! WHY WHY WHY! We have a lot of $$$ invested into our DB tools and the way we use them. THIS IS FRUSTRATING!
I am also having this issue recently.
I run windows 10 on two different pc's and require inheritable permissions to be granted on 1 of those boxes in particular.
This change is a deal breaker. I don't know whether it was intentional or not but I would suggest adding a toggle for this functionality if you want to keep people using your product.
I can confirm, that setting the permissions on the (hidden) .dropbox.cache folder will reflect on synced files.
This works for me, since all my files needs one specific permissions. It will not work, if there are different permissions for different folders.
This is so stupid.
(But not as stupid as the change to selective sync, which did completly mess up our setting and forces us to use a new dropbox account.)
This is pathetic. I have the same issue on windows 10. I am working on web files which i am adding on one machine, but the other machine then loses permission for the web server to access the file.
This should not have changed as there is no explanation or valid reason for this behaviour. Windows specifically inherits all security setting for a file created in a folder. This is the way windows works!!
I will be using a competitor product.
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
The sync status is fine - all files are syncing perfectly. It's just their ACL permissions are getting changed if the file is synced via Dropbox, as opposed to saved directly to the folder on the PC.
An example folder permissions are as per shot1.
Edited by moderator
If a file is saved directly on the PC into the Dropboxed folder, it inherits the permissions from the parent folder correctly (shot2)
Edited by moderator
But if it's saved on another machine and gets synced by Dropbox, it gets saved with different permissions and ignores inheritance (shot3)
Edited by moderator
Is there any way to get back to the old days - when I used Dropbox to save my web files
- Fiona
Hey rjwb. Sorry for any frustration this has caused, however, as our team explained this set up is not supported. Not much I can add to this unfortunately.
psltracker You can still save your web files. Would you like to elaborate on your request so I can assist more with this.
If your request is not related to this topic. Please create a new topic and we will be happy to help.
Thanks.
I'm having an issue with Dropbox client changing the windows permissions on a file when another computer/user makes a change to that file and it syncs.
First screenshot shows the windows permissions of the file on Computer A prior to making edits on a different computer Computer B.
After the first screenshot below, I made changes to the excel file on Computer B.
Second screenshot below shows the windows permissions of the file on Computer A after Computer A Dropbox client syncs changes.
The parent folder of this file has the same permissions as they were of the file prior to the changes/sync. This is shown in the third screenshot below.
Before changes and sync
After change and sync
Permissions of parent folder are identical to the before screenshot
- Lusil
Hi there volfman, thanks for checking in with us.
I've moved your post to this thread where other users have reported a similar behavior as to what you describe.
As Fiona also mentions here, the Dropbox desktop app tries its best to ensure consistent permissions in the Dropbox folder, and you may find custom permissions are not maintained to ensure that the files sync to other devices without any issues.
I understand that this may not be the ideal reply you were looking for, but thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
I am also having this issue. Have been using this system for many years and over the last few months have been struggling to work out why the permissions have suddenly been failing. Would also like to put my vote in for Dropbox to deal with this issue.
When you modify a file the security properties change to others and are not respected, how can I fix this?
- Walter
Hi RAR_Systems - welcome to our Community!
I'm not sure if you're referring to this, but could you take a look at the discussion I had a little while ago with some other users that noticed something similar?
Cross-linking it here for reference:
Is this what you're talking about as well?
Yes, same problem
Same Issue! Thanks for posting, I have been pulling my hair out as well trying to figure this out. BAD MOVE DROPBOX! WHY WHY WHY! We have a lot of $$$ invested into our DB tools and the way we use them. THIS IS FRUSTRATING!
Did anybody ever end up getting more information from Advanced Support in the last few weeks?
Meanwhile, there's a new version (92.4.382) to test and be disappointed by in all likelihood.
We still have the same issue as well. Support only told us to uninstall and re-install. Not much of a support team.
Still waiting for a solution Dropbox.....
