Photos not showing up. Get an error when trying to preview them.

[andrewstvnsn]

Hi all,
Does anyone know why my photos won’t load? I downloaded them to my Dropbox via a link back in February. They are appearing in my Dropbox but there is an error when I try to open and view them.

[Megan]

Hi @andrewstvnsn, let's jump right into this! 

Just to clarify: what is the exact error you get on your end, when trying to preview these files? 

Have you tried accessing them, while using an entirely different browser, by any chance? Feel free to give this a go, and also try an incognito mode on your current browser.

Let me know more! 

[andrewstvnsn]

Hi Megan,
This is on the mobile app. I downloaded photos from a link back in February. They now suddenly appear as white boxes and when I try to load one, it says “couldn’t load photo”. When I logged into Dropbox online, there was nothing at all!

[Megan]

Hm, that's rather odd @andrewstvnsn.

If you search for the file name on the web, using your browser are you able to get any results? 

Was that file inside a shared folder by any chance? 

[andrewstvnsn]

Hi Megan,
They were initially sent to me as a dropbox link which I had downloaded to the app. The images still appear as white boxes on my app, with the date and individual file names, but none of the images actually open when I click through to them. Is there any way of retrieving these?
All the best,
Andrew

[Megan]

Hey @andrewstvnsn, I would suggest that you also try to preview them either using cellular data, or via a different network, just to rule that out. 

If you're able to see them in the account, chances are they might not be deleted.

But since we're at it, feel free to also check your events page. The Events page at www.dropbox.com/events gives you an overview of all activity in your account including files events (adds/edits/deletes), as well as adding or removing shared folders.