Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename

[Dimples]

Recently all of my computer with Dropbox have started showing a sync error "Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename. e.g. emojis, /\"<>:|?*"

The problem filename isn't shown, the "Go to File" link just takes me to the root directory of my drive, and I obviously can't search for those bad characters.  How do I find this file to solve the sync issue?

[Gabrielle Neal]

Sorry Megan, but no this link you supplied didn't clarify anything.

These files have appeared out of nowhere with a full colon inserted.

This is not our practice to create files in this manner.

Please, can someone please give us a better solution than "you will have to rename them yourself" or it is our "OS on our device".

I am sorry, but both of these sound like a cop out.

[antchapmanaudio]

Just started getting this on Windows 10 today, with files that were previously synced perfectly for many years. The characters it claims are illegal actually aren't in W10. Has there been a silent app update that has changed some stuff?

[mpops]

For a while this problem disappeared for me, and now the inability to sync are back yesterday. Hundreds upon hundreds of old files that have synced for years suddenly do not sync. What is going on????

[Mike B.53]

OMG, yes, this!

Dumb interface for figuring out what's wrong with hundreds of my files that synced just fine (some for years) but suddenly today are a problem fror DropBox. And, the few "problem" files that I looked at have nothing but the letters a-z and a few spaces.

[Mark]

@Mike B.53 

is the space at the end of the name of the file (e.g. "Mark .pdf" rather than "Mark.pdf")? If so that is an often incompatible with other OSs

[Mike B.53]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for trying to help me!

No, of today's 138 errors, any that I see do not have a space before the .pdf (or jpeg, indd, png, tiff, etc). In fact, many files have no spaces at all such as "CGI.jpg". A couple of screen caps attached. And these files are both old and weren't previously a problem. Thanks, Mike

 

[Megan]

Hi @Mike B.53, let me see what we can do about this! 

Can you let me know your app's syncing status? 

Also, have you tried renaming an example file through the website to see if it's going to sync afterward? 

Let me know more about it.

[mpops]

Hi Megan,

Every few days I get an error message from Dropbox saying it cannot sync several hundred files of images taken in 2014.  These images have been in Dropbox for all those 8 years.  The problem seemed to clear up a while back and I stopped getting the error messages for a while. But alas, the message is back.  I assume that old files from 2014 have synced from another person who shares the files - but I don't know.  In any case, cleaning them up on my computer is not sufficient, they need to be cleaned up on hte computers of other shared users.

This is NOT an issue of cleaning up the files, it is an issue of Dropbox suddenly refusing to accept file names that have been acceptable for years. Someone at Dropbox has to figure out exactly what is happening and FIX IT!

[Mike B.53]

Hi Megan,

I'll try to do this test and get back to you. Very busy week…

Thanks!

[wcf3]

I think this has to do with symlinked files, at least that is what it looks like for my 108 files that suddenly stopped syncing a couple of weeks ago between my Mac and windows systems.

I should add that they sync fine on the Mac, only windows has the problem. I haven't found a way to correct it and they worked fine for many many years...