Dropbox is stuck syncing after an update, what can I do?

[Shawn B.14]

I have the "Dropbox Plus" subscription and I run the client on 4 computers.

Yesterday (Monday, 13-Jan-2020) I signed onto my desktop (which is always on) and has a full local sync of my dropbox that a number of new files added Saturday had big red Xs on them -- JPEGs I had scanned Saturday and which were in sync to my laptop on Sunday morning.

I checked my other workstation (also always on) and Dropbox wasn't even running.  I launched it, and it pretty immediately ran a "one time update".   Once this completed, it appeared to go into a full-on sync mode, indexing thousands of files and downloading thousands more (my total dropbox footprint is ~17k files, 600 GB of data).  This has been running for 24 hours without making any apparent progress, despite the drive being materially in sync with my first workstation (using BeyondCompare to check).  Plus not enough system activity to indicate any actual indexing or download was taking place.

I paused workstation 2, uninstalled dropbox on workstation 1 and reinstalled it.  Just prior to this, workstation 1 was "stuck" uploading 2 files and downloading 7 files, which it had been on since last night.

Workstation 1 now shows "indexing" for around 8k files and "downloading" for 9k files.  Trouble is, Resource Monitor doesn't show disk activity or network activity for that kind of activity.

What's going on?  I was perfectly in sync as of Saturday morning and over the last 24 hours it's gotten bad.

Oddly, my laptop ("laptop 1") is apparently fine, showing more or less normal sync status as far as I can tell (and is on build 88.4.172).

[Shawn B.14]

Near as I can tell, the new build doesn't solve any of the underlying problems.  I'm still at the same status I've been at the whole time.

It's disappointing that there's so much apparent faith by Dropbox that there's no serious problem and such a lack of transparency about what big changes have occured in sync lately that might be causing a problem.

[Ronald H.]

Nope, no change. Endless "Synching..." without any updates appearing on other computers or on Dropbox web.

[S34W0LF]

Installed this new version yesterday, but no progress. Still "Syncing..." since 16th of January. Tried all @Daphne 's fixes, none has worked. My ticket number is #10206179 

[Fiona]

Thank you all for the updates. 

@S34W0LF I took over your ticket to investigate personally and I will include more members of my team to the case as well. Thank you. 

[Shawn B.14]

Well, I'm kind amazed.

I came to my computer earlier this morning after reading about the 89.x update.  Dropbox wasn't even running on my computer, so I launched it to see what version I had.   It was 89.x, and at startup it looked like the last version, thousands of file indexing and downloading. 

It stayed that way until about a half an hour ago, then I had a major burst of system activity and those index/sync numbers started to come down, and finally I'm back to showing perfectly in sync.

I sure wish we had an explanation as to what was wrong to begin with -- the release notes for 89.x mention nothing about the problems I and others had.  Obviously something significant broke and got fixed.

[AOW1]

89.4.278 installed. @Daphne 's fixes did not resolve issue. Multiple machines affected and stuck at different upload/download counts. Two machines not affected. Ticket #10198542

[DanielJ]

I too would like to add that after an automatic update to 89.4.278, followed by continued crashing, and then a reinstallation of the same version, the situation has stabilized and Dropbox has now stayed in sync (and updates changes) for over 24 hours. The memory consumption is higher than before but it stays at least on the same level instead of climbing continuously.

[DarseZ]

Down to 3 or 4 files syncing, but no actual files synchiing in explorer so those are a mystery.  It works pretty well now, my fight is done.   Good to see that the devs have gotten close to fixing whatever the problem was.

The real story seems to be how help desk handled it, running through the playbook rituals but without revealing the true facts on the ground (ie: buggy release).  Dropbox, you really could do better, we deserve that for the money we pay. 

[Fiona]

Thank you for posting about this @DanielJ.

@AOW1 Located your already escalated case, so since you already have specialized members of my team working with you there I am unable to provide extra steps on my end. However, I see you responded there today and I added feedback and your latest update to 89.4 for my cooleagues to follow up as soon as possible.  

[marianemes]

@Fiona @AOW1 I also had "my case turned over to a specialized team"...like days ago. Yesterday I asked them if they could reply. I got an answer 😄 The general copy paste thing, how we can help you, etc. Welcome to the dropbox refugee club!