Dropbox sync stalling on Big Sur

[dacX]

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.

[LFW]

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?

[Jay]

Hi @LFW, if you're still experiencing issues, I'd recommend replying to the last email you received two days ago from the support team for them to investigate further on their end.

They should be able to assist in more detail.

[Anthony F.21]

Daphne,

I was just going to  plow past all this since   im   so upset and past emails have  been ignored, but you are taking this seriously. So here goes.

1. It's happening to everyone I know on Big Sur in the video production industry who trades large files. or who float creative special effects files within an office up through the cloud. 

2. Although her name is gone from this reply window, the woman who so carefully gave you detail showed a level of patience, and intelligence (and creativity for workarounds) than I've every seen - yet you twice reply with - forgive me - minimal answers and make requests of her to "do more" and feed you more data as though you have no idea what she is experiencing. You don't even acknowledge that anyone else is having a problem, and a lot of online software companies do this same technique which isolates the customer/user into feeling we might be just causing our own problem, or ignorant of an obvious solution. Yet.......

3. There are a hell of a lot of people going through this for Dropbox to be feigning ignorance for months. Just read the comments/replies.

4. A lot of what Dropbox does is counter-intuitive, but I have suffered through clinging to the fewer and fewer things I just don't want to change - and like your customer said - starting  over with nearly 2TB of data is not optimal (she was so respectful in her tone) it is not what I am willing to do - not when I see her answer you yet again with attempted solutions which likely took her hours - documented FOR YOU - and nothing you said worked for either of us. 

5. Loyalty. This woman demonstrates a loyalty to her working relationship with Dropbox. Then it hit me. You guys really do not put any importance on that, and my frustration for a year (after 15 years of loyalty) is ultimately over that.

HOURS - over THREE DAYS it took for me to do almost everything the previous PATIENT writer tried - it is NOT EASY to clear every trace of dropbox out of your networked systems so you know you get a clean pure install - and still it won't stay open, blinks on and off.

So - BOX here I come, and as bad as iCloud Drive is, at least it is possible to learn it's quirks, and it's icon-only kindergarten interface. You didn't just lose a client with 8 accounts - we are at the space limit and were ready for a big upgrade.

This problem appears to have NO SOLUTION. That's why.

Anthony Florio

[mdea1a]

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.

[Megan]

Hi @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!

[mdea1a]

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.

[A G.9]

OK, so I have been fixing computers for decades and I will tell you that it is super important to be HYPER aggressive about stubborn problems on a macOS.  It is ALWAYS good to have a great external drive backing up your stuff, but I digress.

You always need to weigh out time lost vs aggressive actions. Wiping the entire OS and reinstalling the app, creating a user account, and then just wiping and reinstalling the entire OS and placing applications and folders back on the machine is way faster than working with support to diagnose an unusual problem. These are hyper aggressive actions, but the last I mention will resolve the issue for SURE if the first two options don't work. And for me this always happens usually on a deadline when I don't have time to fix things. But I force the repair this way to get beyond the BS as quickly as possible. I prefer a known quantity instead of an unknown quantity. I used to toy with the idea of switching to SugarSync for an option over Box, but really I just stick with Dropbox. 

I am sitting in front of five machines as you read this.  :-)))

I had this corruption happen of not synching and my Internet simply stopped working.  When my Internet was repaired, dropbox was getting stuck synching, even after I 'fixed permissions' and 'reset links'. It was stuck on 19,900 files down to 18,700.. then back up again to 19,490 and back down.  When it comes down to it, it is easier for me to just remove and then reinstall the app cleanly. The next step would be to dump the entire user account on the computer so I have a fresh user account, after removing dropbox from the machine.  But I never went that far with this issue.

Internet issue: This problem hit me when my VPN protected app I use to scrape video was no longer turning off its proxies when the  program was closed. So the first step was for me to get the Internet connected again. I had to do this by closing all the open apps (as indicated by the black dot below the Dock program icons), except finder. This allows the machine to recapture RAM and CPU power, that otherwise are CONSTANTLY leaking resources in both OSX and macOS. It is ALWAYS good practice to choose the upper left menu option for each and every program and QUIT the program. Firefox --> Quit.        Mail--> Quit.   Google Chrome --> Quit.

Then I headed over to System Preferences -_> Network, and selected each connection type I use - here it was Ethernet via Firewire. I choose advanced and then make sure under Proxies, there are NO check marks.

Once I was back on the Internet, I then grabbed the latest copy of AppCleaner, at freemacsoft [dot] net that will act kinda like those utilities that seek out all the dependencies in the program throughout the machine for any program you delete and delete the excess program files.  Then I go into the dropbox preferences and Unlink the computer from the Dropbox mothership. 

Next I begin removing the Dropbox files. 

YOU HAVE to TURN OFF THE PROGRAM ENTIRELY before dragging your dropbox.app into the AppCleaner window, to allow AppCleaner to take it away from macOS. (Also if you have never done this before you MAY get a popup option that allows you to control program deletion protection, with a middle option presenting a slider switch that needs to be turned on, to turn off the protection - yes, double negative)

Once the program has been deleted entirely I will remove the files from the machine, I have a backup on an external drive anyway,  but then I choose to reinstall the dropbox.app, and adjust the system gatekeeper permissions again. Also in this process, I tell the dropbox program to download them to NOT leave them in the cloud online only, but instead Local, then choose ADVANCED in the dropbox installer, and select the check box to "Start Online" This makes it go really quickly for 2TB of stuff. 

Once that is complete, I choose the folders one by one, those I truly need, by RIGHT clicking them and choosing the Dropbox extension re: Selective Sync to Local those folders I really need. The rest I leave on cloud until I need them. 

Hope this helps someone. 

Dropbox can be awesome, but support is somewhat lacking due to training. Always remember that hyper aggressive actions are way quicker than slow support. 

[mdea1a]

I'm sorry, I do not know the answer to this. That sounds equally as frustrating. I have not had this problem. When I open the Dropbox App, then the Dropbox icon shows as active in the Menu Bar. Have you posted this as a new thread, it might get more attention?