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Forum Discussion
Dropbox unstable in iPad OS Files App.
The problem I have is that Dropbox seems to crash when running on an iPAD via the apple files app. If I open an application that uses the files app, such as Pages or Final Draft, when saving to the D...
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Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staffmirismile, did you start having this issue after an upgrade perhaps?
Also, have you tried to clear the Dropbox app’s cache, uninstall it, restart your device and then, reinstall the mobile app once again?
For some background This has been going on for months in fact over a year I think and many people have tried rebooting reinstalling re-everything. Nothing works in my mind this is a problem between Apple and dropbox. This doesn’t happen if you just use dropbox app to access files on its own and it doesn’t happen if you just use the Apple‘s file app on its own say on iCloud files and not accessing dropbox. Therefore there is some sort of demon that runs sitting between files app and dropbox and when you access dropbox through or via the Files app this is when the problem occurs it doesn’t matter what you do it will always occur eventually. many users have now experienced it. I have stated this on multiple occasions. Unfortunately neither Apple nor dropbox seem keen to do anything about it.
Unfortunately, if you want to say attach multiple documents to something that Apple uses for say Safari or another website or anything else you will encounter the problem because you are accessing your files through the files app going to dropbox and that causes the problem.
I have tried many ways to resolve the problem. The quickest and simplest is to reboot which instantly solves the problem. The reason for this is that it will reset anything that is running. One other tell-tale thing which is very interesting is once dropbox has failed. If you try and access it via the Files app you will see you cannot when you press on dropbox absolutely nothing happens you can see no files. However if you then close the Files app and open the Dropbox app, you can see all your files there for the problem is definitely accessing dropbox via the iOS files app.
Unfortunately, if you want to say attach multiple documents to something that Apple uses for say Safari or another website or anything else you will encounter the problem because you are accessing your files through the files app going to dropbox and that causes the problem.
I have tried many ways to resolve the problem. The quickest and simplest is to reboot which instantly solves the problem. The reason for this is that it will reset anything that is running. One other tell-tale thing which is very interesting is once dropbox has failed. If you try and access it via the Files app you will see you cannot when you press on dropbox absolutely nothing happens you can see no files. However if you then close the Files app and open the Dropbox app, you can see all your files there for the problem is definitely accessing dropbox via the iOS files app.
- Thank you for summing this up. I don't know how many times the same thing can be tried over and over.
This problem occurs every day for me. I am now so used to it that I have a button on my iPad which I click on the screen which automatically reboots the iPad. This always solves the problem. This points to - I believe….as I said in previous posts there’s something running in the background that falls over and dropbox fails -this cab always be checked by attempting to use dropbox THROUGH the Files app. You will find when you click on it nothing happens. However if you use the native Dropbox app you can see and use the files…. it affects any app using dropbox VIA the files app. So for example, the last time I was trying to open a iOS pages file using recents, the file which was stored in dropbox would not open just spinning circle yet soon as I have rebooted everything works perfectly again and this is always the case on whatever device I’m using I have 4 different iPads and phones all are the same. Reboot always resolves the problem. However, this is not a solution Apple and dropbox need to talk to each other. I continue to wait for that momentous event… I won’t hold my breath 😉
Thanks, very well summarized! I can confirm it too.
This bug has been there for (at least) over a year now and no update of ipados nor Dropbox ever changed anything!
Good point and In fact I raised this after prob 6-10 months of struggling so I reckon this issue has existed for 2 years and they def know it exists you can easily reproduce it just use DB on any IOS device and it will show within a matter of 20 mins if you are using it regularly - I thought it was just me at first as Google of issue did not throw up much….but looks like anyone that uses DB and any app that access DB via IOS Files will face the issue.
totally agree. it‘s a chicken or egg problem.
i am in contact with an engineer from apple. trying to capture the issue when it happens so they can check the logfiles for those timestamps.
keep u posted.
f.
- Thanks Vince in a previous life working I used to work in IT security Let me tell you in a none of it surprises me. The amount of bugs in modern software, including Apple by the way is astounding. Things are just chucked out these days, irrespective of loads of bugs and they don’t seem to care too much about them!!! and this problem is so easy to reproduce the people of dropbox and Apple must be well aware of it and given five minutes with an iPad or iPhone with dropbox on it. You can reproduce this problem if you were an IT support person 🙂
I had this problem arise again today. When working on a Pages filed stored in Dropbox on my iPad, the Pages app crashed and the Files app became unresponsive. I reported this back to Megan who had previously helped on this forum using my previous ticket number and got a reply from someone else telling me how to log out of Dropbox if I wanted to do so.
