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Forum Discussion
Dropbox sync stalling on Big Sur
Dropbox has always worked well for me -- until I updated my (very new) iMac to macOS "Big Sur" (11.1) about a month ago.
The issue in a nutshell is that Dropbox will upload changed files for a little bit after starting, then stall entirely, or slow to a creep. It's a little tricky to characterize, because it's not consistent. A few times I quit Dropbix and restarted it and (judging from the "Recent" activity listing in the menubar dropdown) a few files would quickly upload, but then would stall and nothing else would upload, or a few items at random. The little wheel at the bottom of that dropdpwn is turning and says "Syncing XXX files", but nothing seems to happen, and the number of files just keeps going up ... and down ... and up ... it's very difficult to tell what's actually happening or what Dropbx is doing because there doesn't appear to be a sync log I can access. I've tried quitting and deleting the Dropbox app and re-installing. A couple of times when I've done that there would be a burst of upload activity, but then it would stall again, but I can't even get that to happen consistently. Of course Iv'e tried the usual things like restarting and so forth.
Another reason it's difficult to in down is that the behavior is so erratic. In one instance a file I put in a particualr Dropbox folder uploaded right away. But in that same folder are things I added WEEKS ago now that have yet to sync. If there's a pattern or characteristic common to things that are not uploading, or when or why Dropbox stalls, or how to kick-start those bursts of uploadeds, I can't identify it. (No clues in "View sync issues". Just a few Outlook emoji that won't upload because they have an emoji in the file name.)
I'm feeling stytmied. Suggestions as to things to try welcome, or tools to help figure out what Dropbox is doing or trying to do to help narrow down the issue. (I have about 1.6 TB worth of stuff in Dropbox, though, so solutions that involve re-uploading everything from scratch will not be particularly welcome.)
I've Googled around and not been able to identify others with similar issues.
Thanks.
Ok, time to summarize the situation. (Punchline: problem seems to be fixed! Here's how.)
Side issue: the steps to fix permissions now work with an update to the Dropbox app itself. (Namely, open Dropbox preferences, go to the Account tab, and hold the option key (on a Mac) to see the options to Fix Permissions or Fix Hardlinks. Be aware that when you click those buttons there's no visual feedback anything's happening, but if you wait a while you should get a message the operation has been successful (or presumably not, if not). That did not, however, fix my particular problem of Dropbox sync stalling after just a few files every time it restarted. But at least the option is now available on Big Sur if needed in the future.)
After being bumped to a couple of higher levels of support... [One of the lower levels, I kid you not, tried to argue that the issue I was having was because Dropbox was bad at what it does, and it was unreasonable of me to expect Dropbox to backup a lot of stuff. In spite of the fact that Dropbox tries to upsell me to a larger Dropbox every time I login. But anyway...] ... support suggested unlinking Dropbox online from the machine exhibiting the problem and then re-linking it. This worked! And it did not require re-uploading all of my stuff (somewhat less than 2TB), or an unreasonable amount of time, both of which I had feared. But since the only alternative was switching to another backup solution (my planned next step), I was willing to give it a try.
Here are the steps I took:
1) Login to Dropbox.com
2) Click on my avatar [top right] and choose Settings
3) Select the Security tab and scroll down to Devices
4) Find the device exhibiting the problem and click the trash bin icon to the far right. [Note: this was a bit scary -- I was concerned Dropbox might do something nutty like remove files on my home device. I proceeded after reading the information under "Learn more", which promises it won't do that. Still, if you're smart you'll have a complete backup before proceeding.]
5) Click "Unlink" in the resulting dialogue. [Do NOT tick the scary checkbox.]
6) Wait a few minutes while Dropbox on the affected machine spins around in confusion.
7) When a dialogue pops up asking to re-enter your account information on the affected machine, do so.
At that point Dropbox on the affected machine began furiously re-indexing my Dropbox (/not/ re-uploading everything, which I had been fearful of), and within an hour or two had completed re-indexing everything in my Dropbox, synced all the stuff that hadn't synced over the last couple of months (with the expected assortment of "conflicted copies" of some things, so be sure to check carefully which is the one you want to keep -- in my case, it was always the "conflicted copies"), and for the first time in months finally reported itself as "Up to date". It's been a few days and Dropbox has been humming along happily ever since, syncing my stuff more or less instantaneously as it always had up to the point this problem began (when I updated the machine in question to Big Sur).
So I'm going to report this as "solved" for now! Thank you for everyone's assistance. Even the nice person who said Dropbox was bad at what it does 😉
[If they want to be taken seriously -- and to keep taking people's money to provide, you know, a file backup and sync solution -- they really should stop saying that.]
Ok, time to summarize the situation. (Punchline: problem seems to be fixed! Here's how.)
Side issue: the steps to fix permissions now work with an update to the Dropbox app itself. (Namely, open Dropbox preferences, go to the Account tab, and hold the option key (on a Mac) to see the options to Fix Permissions or Fix Hardlinks. Be aware that when you click those buttons there's no visual feedback anything's happening, but if you wait a while you should get a message the operation has been successful (or presumably not, if not). That did not, however, fix my particular problem of Dropbox sync stalling after just a few files every time it restarted. But at least the option is now available on Big Sur if needed in the future.)
After being bumped to a couple of higher levels of support... [One of the lower levels, I kid you not, tried to argue that the issue I was having was because Dropbox was bad at what it does, and it was unreasonable of me to expect Dropbox to backup a lot of stuff. In spite of the fact that Dropbox tries to upsell me to a larger Dropbox every time I login. But anyway...] ... support suggested unlinking Dropbox online from the machine exhibiting the problem and then re-linking it. This worked! And it did not require re-uploading all of my stuff (somewhat less than 2TB), or an unreasonable amount of time, both of which I had feared. But since the only alternative was switching to another backup solution (my planned next step), I was willing to give it a try.
Here are the steps I took:
1) Login to Dropbox.com
2) Click on my avatar [top right] and choose Settings
3) Select the Security tab and scroll down to Devices
4) Find the device exhibiting the problem and click the trash bin icon to the far right. [Note: this was a bit scary -- I was concerned Dropbox might do something nutty like remove files on my home device. I proceeded after reading the information under "Learn more", which promises it won't do that. Still, if you're smart you'll have a complete backup before proceeding.]
5) Click "Unlink" in the resulting dialogue. [Do NOT tick the scary checkbox.]
6) Wait a few minutes while Dropbox on the affected machine spins around in confusion.
7) When a dialogue pops up asking to re-enter your account information on the affected machine, do so.
At that point Dropbox on the affected machine began furiously re-indexing my Dropbox (/not/ re-uploading everything, which I had been fearful of), and within an hour or two had completed re-indexing everything in my Dropbox, synced all the stuff that hadn't synced over the last couple of months (with the expected assortment of "conflicted copies" of some things, so be sure to check carefully which is the one you want to keep -- in my case, it was always the "conflicted copies"), and for the first time in months finally reported itself as "Up to date". It's been a few days and Dropbox has been humming along happily ever since, syncing my stuff more or less instantaneously as it always had up to the point this problem began (when I updated the machine in question to Big Sur).
So I'm going to report this as "solved" for now! Thank you for everyone's assistance. Even the nice person who said Dropbox was bad at what it does 😉
[If they want to be taken seriously -- and to keep taking people's money to provide, you know, a file backup and sync solution -- they really should stop saying that.]
How do you even keep the Dropbox app open on an iMac running Big Sur 11.2.2? I double-click on the Dropbox app to open it, then quickly go to the grayed-out icon in my menu bar, but before I can even get to preferences or anything else in the app, Dropbox quits on its own. I have tried:
• Reinstalling the offline app, now, four times
• Deleting then reinstalling the app to "User & Groups" launch items in System Preferences
• Contacting Chat help, which moved me to Email help.
• Communication with Email help, which hasn't responded in the last three days – Email help told me to do everything I already did above and then disappeared.
Any suggestions?
I'm running Big Sur 11.2.2. on a two-year-old iMac. For the last three weeks, Dropbox has stopped syncing. In the last two weeks, if I click on the app in my applications folder it will not open. Then, suddenly, I'll see the app icon appear, grayed out, in my menu bar, then it disappears. What happens next is the "Do you want to import screenshots" dialog box will appear then disappear repeatedly until I shut down the computer.
I contacted Chat Help. They moved me to Email Help. I reported and tried what you see listed below, and have not heard anything in three days. I'm hoping someone in this forum can help.
• Reinstalled the app three times
• Deleted and added the app to Users and Groups• I have no anti-virus software and never have.
• My internet connection is the highest available.
• I have always used use Selective Sync, so only a small number of files sync.
- Hi dacX. I wish I could report the same results for my 2019 iMac on Big Sur, but I can’t. Despite taking the steps you laid out, Dropbox is still stuck on indexing, just like it was before.
I'm sorry to hear that. How long ago did you unlink it?
Thank you so much for sharing this! It's been making me BONKERS! Finally fixed. 👏
- Daphne
Dropbox Staff
Hi dacX, thanks for reaching out to us here!
Just so I can have a better idea of your current setup, can you send me a screenshot of the current sync status of the app?
Has the sync status showed "up to date" recently, or does it appear to always get stuck on "syncing" at some point?
Also, what version of the app do you have installed?
Looking forward to your reply!
Thanks for getting back to me.
The "current sync status" says "checking for updates". This is what it has said for WEEKS now. (Once, the very first time I tried re-installing Dropbox, it showed some files for a while, but it didn't stay that way.)
The number of files it says it's syncing goes up and down. While I've been typing this it went from the 180 in the screenshot to 181. Earlier in the day the number listed was in the thousands. (When you hold down the option key and click on the Dropbix menubar item it actually says "indexing 181 files", so maybe there's something messed up with the indexing process or index itself?) At no time in over the past month has it shown "up to date" on this machine. The "recent files" list frequently shows the most recent file as added hours or even days ago. In Activity Monitor Dropbox shows a pretty consistent 10%-ish CPU activity.
It's hard to make sense of, because some things DO apparently sync, but on the other hand there are items that haven't synced in a month now that are in the same folder as items that have. Dropbox has been a reliable partner for me for years, but this has me frustrated. I have two other computers also upgraded to Big Sur that have not had this problem.
Preferences says v113.4.507. I have downloaded a new installer an re-installed the app several times. (I also found and deleted the cache in ~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache as I saw recommended in another post, and like other things I've tried this got Dropbox "unstuck" briefly before it stalled again.)
Any help will be welcome. Thanks!
- DaphneThanks for the additional info dacX, it's very helpful.
Can you try out these steps to see if that does the trick?
You might need to allow the app some time to apply the changes, but you should see the sync status changing if the syncing starts to progress.
I am having this same issue. Tech support is incredibly slow and this is substantially eating up time and compromising my work productivity. Initially I was told to Fix Permissions which I did. Several times in fact. This didn't solve it, it kept reappearing, failing to download offline files that I needed, and failing to save/sync files I was working on, and the Sync message kept spinning and changing the number of files that it would sync, some showing from months ago, some newer. I eventually uninstalled the App completely from this MacBook Pro 17" (2020) and reinstalled it and now when it tries to launch the newly installed App I get a message saying that my Computer is offline/not connected to the Internet (which is not true I have strong connection with 250 MB speed and can play videos in the browser - this is only the Dropbox App that is having this problem). So now I can't even login/sign-in to set up the newly installed App. This is incredibly frustrating. I tried a variety of other fixes from articles I read and still can't access my files through the App, I have to go online, download them to the downloads folder, to share them or work on them right now. Can anyone help me. I'm close to finding another service and trying to migrate all of my files there and ditching Dropbox altogether if someone I can't get this fixed soon, it is incredibly time consuming and frustrating.
- MeganHi mdea1a, I hope you're doing well and am sorry to hear about this.
There is a possibility that a VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router issues could be restricting your Dropbox desktop application.
Also, if it's not too much to ask, could you try another WiFi network (or via cellular data) and let me know if you get any different results?
Let me know!Hi Lori, these generic/generalized suggestions/fixes (the same ones I was given in the support email trail) did not lead me to the answer and yes I tried different WiFi networks and including a Personal Hotspot with no change. However, I found an article elsewhere that mentioned that in Big Sur, under System Preferences --> Network --> WiFi --> Advanced ---> Proxies ... that if you uncheck the box labeled Web Proxy (HTTP) and the box labeled Secure Web Proxy (HTTPS) that it sometimes fixes the problem. For whatever reason, the first time I did this there was no change. I was ready to give up but tried a second time and when I did and tried to reopen the newly installed Dropbox App, it then completed installation and synced properly. It is possible, for others reading this, that my Dashlane App may have used the VPN once (I don't recall using it) but that is only thing that I can think of that would have checked those Proxies boxes outside of my control. I think I've used VPN on my Mac Desktop and that has never impacted Dropbox, but that is running Catalina due to its age. I hope this helps others and I would suggest Dropbox Support send a notice out to all techs. I spent hours trying to figure this out and it seems it could have been a quicker response/fix if this was better known. Thanks.
