Windows 7 Event Viewer Error "Failed to connect to the driver: (-2147024894)"

Thanks for jumping in 7 months into the issue.  I've since moved on to another product, but maybe your "hours" of effort will help someone else.  Heck there have been days of effort burned by people who use your product.  

Now that the beta is out, hopefully this will be fixed by January 2018.  

I've been having this issue for a while now. I found the fix on my own of disabling the dbx service but it eventually comes back to life because the dbupdate service will kick on and clean up the fact that the dbx service is disabled. I've found that my PC randomly blue screens with the service enabled and after disabled, it's fine. I'm pretty frustrated at the lack of attention this issue has gotten as it's been going on for quite some time.

Also, the problem is not the frequency you write this error to the event log. The problem is that it installs this when it doesn't need to be installed. It also is causing stability issues on many users computers so it's not a benign error that we can just look past.

I noticed the problem because my computer makes the USB connect/disconnect sound every time it happens. It seems that it happens every second for a while then it resets to try in an hour so there is a gap before more multiple attempts. I am using an HP Spectre with Windows 10 Pro, fully updated. Looks like I also need to disable this service as a temporary workaround. I will flag re-enabling it in 3 months in case Dropbox have fixed it by then. It only started for me about a week ago.

Hi Ross,

Thanks for your belated input.

I am glad Dropbox is looking at the issue but, when you consider how long it has been going on, surely there should have been some sort of resolution by now.

Really it is not good enough to say that "It should be failing to connect. This is by design, the actual issue you’re facing is due to the frequency we're writing to the logs".  If it is "by design" then it is pretty poor design that the repetitive logging is taking place throughout a computer session - the key to good design is that function is achieved effectively; other aspects, including aesthetics etc. are subordinate so if the main function is impaired, then the design is flawed.  That is the case with Dropbox at present - expecting users to use a beta version is not the answer; yes, users prepared to explore a beta version to feedback to Dropbox is one thing but to expect all users to do that for very limited improvement is not acceptable.

You can see that many users are 'voting with their feet' and dropping Dropbox.  You should not experiment with your main body of users if you want to keep them on board but restrict all such experimentation within the beta test versions and only releasing the changes into the everyday versions once all snags have been resolved.  Your disregard for your users is an unhealthy and disrespectful approach that is not good for Dropbox - it is sad to say that, what was a a good, effective facility, is now tainted and developing a quite negative reputation.

For the moment I will keep Dropbox but only with dbxsvc disabled (I don't particularly require 'Smart Sync' and neither will I update to a beta version for little gain) - I have to say, however, that I am trialling a competitor, namely Box, which gives me five times more storage space (in the free personal version) and, so far, has run very smoothly.

The problem does seem to at least be vastly improved, if not completely fixed, with version 31.4.24 on my Windows 10 system.  I've had less than 10 events reported with DbxSvc as the source in the past 24 hours, and those have been at random times, or system startup.  About half of those events have also been more normal things, like "Server started," or "Pipe server thread started."  I am satisfied with that, as long as the original problem stays away.

Hi katnappa,

 This thread is about dbx.sys writing to the error log when it doesn't connect - which is expected behavior. If you are seeing security, application or systems error then I'd suggest opening a new thread as they will be unrelated to this.

 This thread is about the driver connection frequency. Originally it was connecting too frequently for people to be able to read other events in the logs so we reduced the frequency it wrote to the log.

Hope this helps you.

I agree with the stability issues. I've now uninstalled the application to avoid them. I'll probably come back in say 6 months time and see if this isue has been fixed.

OMG!  I've been getting that sound too for the past few weeks at sporadic times.  I thought it was my PC playing up, and it might still be.  Now that I've uninstalled DropBox today I'll see if the sound is gone for good or not.

UPDATE: Well after removing DropBox I've had no intermittent beeping as though a USB device was unplugged. It was happening at least once a day before the removal.  A few times over the past couple of months my keyboard and mouse (both wired) also froze after the beeps so I wonder if those events were caused by DropBox as well. Time will tell.