We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.

Desktop

30 Topics

How to fix being stuck on Indexing forever loop of death on multi million file DBs after db crash
Ok so I've used Dropbox for almost as long as its existed and recently due to frustration with the never finishing indexing bug I was forced to find out why this kept happening so I could prevent it. Bear with me on this long post but trust me its worth it, what I found was mind blowing and game changing. So our business Dropbox is more than 9 million files strong, I've noticed REALISTICALLY any machine handling over 2 million will just enter an indexing loop at some point from which it will never recover, after its happened 5 times in the last week I was pissed enough to that I decided I was going to find out why this is happening, I know I'm pushing the limits but we've had machines with 2.5m files running fine for years, why some work fine and some don't was a mystery, one I was determined to find out. When you add stuff to your Dropbox, Dropbox has to index it so it can know what to do with it. If you add "too much stuff" (copying 200,000 files of small size in one go, coders know what I'm talking about) or do it "too fast" (changing access permissions on 1.5 million files located within Dropbox in one go in less than 5 minutes) on a computer with too many files (1-2+m) this causes Dropbox to start indexing them all at once causing the system to slow to a crawl however if you don't let Dropbox finish before doing something else (like adding more files or using the computer for other tasks) or someone else adds a bunch of files on another machine its almost for sure going to cause Dropbox to crash and restart during this process (it happens quite frequently), this crashing and restarting triggers a full reindexing of the ENTIRE database, ALL files, and since the machine is already trying to download or upload some of the new files while trying to reindex the current millions of files, doing both at once overtaxes it, which causes it to crash, and were back to square one with the infinite indexing crash loop. This kept happening to us all the time, the only solution was to unlink and relink the Dropbox account so all pending changes were lost, we got a bunch of conflicted copies and spent days sorting out the mess. So I figured I needed to see what was going on with Dropbox, what it was doing when it was "indexing" to find out what was causing the crashes. So after looking for a while I found using Microsoft's sysinternals process monitor (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon) configured in a certain way allowed me to look at EXACTLY what dropbox was doing and I found out all I just told you and another very important piece of info. (if you want to see how awesome it looks in action check out THIS video:) When you click PAUSE FILE SYNCING you would think Dropbox pauses and ceases all operations, but you are wrong!, it pauses all incoming and outgoing transfers but any INDEXING tasks keep going! This is an absolute game changer! now if I see a machine that says "Indexing" for a long time, I turn on the process monitor, hit pause on the file syncing and watch as the machine does the indexing at super high speed (5-10 times faster than doing it while downloading), it usually finishes doing the full file reindexing in a couple of minutes once its done I can hit back resume and keep going, I've never had the app crash while doing this "offline" or "paused" indexing, thus avoiding the inevitable crash, and reindex loop. I have been successful in recovering 4 machines from the indexing loop of death using this method, where before I was screwed and had to eat the duplicate files and cleanup for a week and a TON of annoyed users in the office. Basically if your machine is taking too long indexing or is stuck indexing after a crash just hit "pause for 1 hour" and forget about it, it will still be working on the indexing in the background, and when it restarts it should have finished the re-index avoiding a crash when trying to download/upload the new files. Id wish Dropbox would have told us this, I never expected it to keep indexing while paused, I assumed pause was PAUSE, as in, cease all operations, it would have saved me so many headaches. All they need to do now is let us have a "log viewer" or something so we can tell when its done doing its thing and we can hit resume, also show us, even when in pause, when its indexing and when its not, so when its done we know we can restart it safely, or the better yet, set it to where if Dropbox has to index a large volume of files (say over 100), it will automatically pause all other disk operations until the indexing is complete, then restart the downloads, trying to do both does not work, i know you want it to but it just doesn't, and just causes the whole thing to explode non stop in a loop of death, maybe enable this on a setting somewhere? or auto enable it on machines with over 500k files? something has to be able to be done. TLDR: If your Dropbox is stuck indexing, hit pause 30 mins, and let it do its thing until its done, it will keep on doing it even when paused, you wont know if its doing anything or working unless you use procmon, but its working, and try avoid using the hard drive or the machine until its done, (usually less than 30 mins), and your indexing/crashing problem will be fixed. Message to Dropbox: Dear Dropbox, Please give us a way to view this info without having to resort to third party programs, this way we can help auto troubleshoot our Dropbox issues and take a lot of load off your customer service guys. Something like: Enabling a setting somewhere saying "activate/enable troubleshoot/server mode" or something that allows us to turn on an always shown (ALWAYS, NOT ONLY WHEN MOUSE OVER, BUT ALWAYS!!!) 3 tab little window, containing: Indexing files. (with a current list of the exact files being indexed and their speed (x files per sec)/paths) Downloading Files.(with a current list of the exact files being downloaded and their speed/paths) Uploading Files(with a current list of the exact files being uploaded and their speed/paths) There's another issue with slow uploads due to Dropbox connections stuck in a "stagnant state" (force closing the TCP socket connection using netmon restarts the download/upload and speed goes back up again) but that's another problem for another time. I hope this was helpful to some other sysadmin and sorry for the long message but it needed explaining.
XionicFire
3 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
28KViews
11likes
12Comments
How Connie, a member of the Community, uses Dropbox
We love hearing how you, the Community members use Dropbox. Everyone has their own favorite features and little hacks, so we want to share some with you! Up first, we haveConnie (ConF2_0), a long time Dropbox Plus customer, member of the Dropbox Community, and avid Vault user. Connie sat down with Gavin, a member of our Dropbox team, and told him all about how she uses Dropbox and why she loves Vault. I am Connie and I currently live in Germany. I've lived here for two years now. I've been a speech language pathologist for more than 30 years and that's what brought me to Dropbox, actually. I worked in a school setting for years and I frequently needed to be able to take work home. I needed a way to do this without having to carry stuff and make copies. I could email my spreadsheets, and reports and things, but I kept thinking “I don't know, emailing doesn't really make me comfortable - it's supposed to be really secure, but I'm not sure." I honestly cannot remember how I stumbled on Dropbox but I thought, “Oh, this is perfect!”, so I set up my account and I've been a user ever since. I was able to start writing my notes and reports at school, and then put them in Dropbox and finish them up when I got home. I could work on my spreadsheets and lesson materials at home and have them back at school waiting for me the next day. My only concern was that as a health care provider, you need to be able to ensure security and privacy. Before Vault, I was using a third party app to encrypt my school files. I thought “there's got to be another way, Dropbox has got to be able to do this”. That third party app was sometimes cumbersome and I'd lock myself out of files. Now, it's so easy - anything that I need to have protected gets uploaded to the Vault - done. No extra passwords to remember, no extra copying and/or downloading! Thanks Connie! We love to hear stories like this and how we can make Dropbox better for all of you. How do you use Dropbox? Tell us in the comments below! Share your tips, tricks, the features you love and how you make the most of Dropbox, whether it’s at home, at work or at school!
Amy
4 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
9.9KViews
8likes
4Comments
Using Selective Sync to free up space
Today on Twitter we'll be talking about Selective Sync. If you have a folder in your Dropbox account that you rarely use - such as back ups of important documents, photos from old holidays, or work files that you don't need on your home PC - you can use Selective Sync to free up that space on your hard drive. You can view your Selective Sync settings in the 'preferences' of your Dropbox desktop app. For a more detailed guide, check out our help center article here. Do you use Selective Sync at home or at work? Do you find it works well for your needs, or do you have any suggestions on how we could improve it? We'd love to hear your thoughts!
Sheena
6 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
2.2KViews
6likes
0Comments
Discover how to collaborate with the new Dropbox desktop app
The new Dropbox desktop app gives you one organized place to work with all your Dropbox content, tools, and Spaces. The new desktop app also makes collaboration even easier. With Dropbox Spaces, you can assigning to‐dos, pin your most important files and see the latest activity right alongside your work so your team stays in sync. 🕶 Check out the video below to see how easy it is to collaborate with the new desktop app: You can read more about the new Dropbox desktop app here. We would love to hear how you collaborate with Dropbox, why not share with Community how you're using Dropbox Spaces today?
Katie
5 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
2.6KViews
5likes
0Comments
SOLUTION: Print Screen Button opens Snipping Tool (or Snip & Sketch) instead of saving to Dropbox
I initially was going to post to ask for help, but I finally got this figured out!! First of all, Dropbox has a feature to save screenshots automatically. Go to preferences and then Backup and you should find a setting to "share screenshots to dropbox". Now the problem/solution: So, I have a new Lenovo laptop running windows 10. I noticed that instead of saving screenshots to Dropbox when I press the "print screen" button on my keyboard that it would open Snip & Sketch software. I tried uninstalling that software and now it just opens Snipping Tool instead. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to simply save a screenshot into Dropbox . I tried restarting, reinstalling. I tried all the different variations of taking a screenshot, such as Windows Key + PrtSc etc etc. I tried removing Snipping Tool with registry edit but couldn't find it. I turned offthe setting “Print Screen Shortcut” in the “Easy of Access Keyboard” settings which SHOULD have done the trick but did NOT. It even says I need to restart which I did, and it still didn't work. Then I read online you can take screenshots with WINDOWS KEY + VOLUME DOWN And I got the beautiful notification "A SCREENSHOT WAS ADDED TO DROPBOX" WOOHOO! Problem Solved!! For some reason, that command now behaves like the old print screen button used to. (You might need to also find your “ease of access keyboard settings” and turn off the setting “Print Screen Shortcut” which I did prior to discovering this awkward solution, so if this didn’t work for you, try turning that setting off and trying again) I hope this helps someone out there. It took me 2 hours to figure this out.
urbanform
4 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
4.7KViews
4likes
3Comments
How to free up space with online and offline file options
Storing and saving your files is important, and making sure your files are available where you need them can help with that. So, let’s figure out if you need to have your files available online or offline. Why should I make my Dropbox files available offline? Whatever device you’re using with Dropbox, whether it’s a computer, tablet, or phone, you can make your files and folders available offline. This is similar to downloading your files, except it also keeps them in Dropbox. This way, your files are saved offline on your device as well as online in your Dropbox account. So, whether you’re on the move, or you have wifi that drops, you can make your files available offline and keep on working. While you’re offline, changes made to your offline files won’t “sync”. This means that the changes you make offline won’t sync between your offline device and everywhere else you access your files in Dropbox. Once you are back online, Dropbox will sync the changes you made to your offline files everywhere you access them in Dropbox. How do I make files available offline? The short version of it is, within your Dropbox folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), find the file you’re looking for and right-click on it, and then simply choose Make available offline. Easy! For more info, you can head over here. What are Dropbox online-only files? As the name suggests, these files are available only when you’re online. Since this frees up space on your computer or your hard drive, it is the perfect option if your laptop is at capacity, but you still want to access your files. If you set a file or folder to online-only, you’ll still see the file or folder in the Dropbox folder on your computer, but it’s just a placeholder. You can only open it if you’re connected to internet. Dropbox removes it from your computer’s hard drive, so that it only takes up space in your Dropbox account online. How to make a file or folder online-only: To set a file or folder to online-only manually: Open File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Open the Dropbox folder. Right-click the file or folder you’d like to set to online-only. Under Quick Actions, click Make online-only. If you’d like to save your file or folder back to your computer’s hard drive, repeat this step and click Make available offline. So, now you know the difference between online-only and offline files and when each one might suit better. So, why not look at your files and folders and see if you can free up some space? Do you separate your files depending on where and when you need them?
Amy
4 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
8.5KViews
3likes
1Comment
What’s included in my Dropbox plan? Plus edition
If you use Dropbox there are a ton of amazing features available to you, but different plans have different features so we want to make sure you know exactly what you have access to! This time, we’re going to focus on Dropbox Plus accounts - so listen up if you’re a Plus user. Here is a list of the features available to Plus users, that I’m sure most people are already aware of, or using regularly already, but it never hurts to be reminded! 2 TB (2,000 GB) of storage space. Shared folders and links - learn the ins and outs of links here. Dropbox Paper - this is a big one, so here’s a refresher on that. Anywhere access Integrated desktop experience Best-in-class sync technology Mobile offline folders Camera upload Send up to 2 GB per Transfer File requests Web previews and comments Viewer info Remote device wipe File recovery and version history - 30-day history Dropbox Rewind - 30-day history Full text search Plus button Web previews and comments Integrated cloud content 256-bit AES and SSL/TLS encryption So those are the ones you likely already know, but there are some new and exciting features for Dropbox Plus users this year as well, and now’s your chance to learn all about them. Dropbox Family The Dropbox Family plan has 2 TB of storage space that can be shared by up to 6 members, even grandparents or kids away at college. With Dropbox Family, you and your family can securely organize and share content, like photos, videos, and important documents. Dropbox Passwords: Dropbox Passwords lets you seamlessly sign in to websites and apps by storing your passwords. The Passwords app remembers your usernames and passwords on all your devices—so you don’t have to. Dropbox Vault: Dropbox Vault helps you secure and organize your most sensitive information in the cloud. Vault is a PIN-protected folder in your Dropbox account that you can access any time and on any device. There’s even more new features, including Computer Backup, Hellosign and the App Centre so you can get more details here. Support: If you need help with your Plus account, you have access to priority email support, the Help Centre, and of course the Dropbox Community is always here to help.
Amy
5 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
37KViews
3likes
2Comments
How does your organization organize their files as a team?
What works best for y'all's organization when it comes to file organization as a team?
Cat12
8 months ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
1.4KViews
2likes
2Comments
How to Sync Two Business Accounts on the Same Computer
Requires two local users to be configured on the computer While logged in to the first local user, log in to business account #1 on the Dropbox app. Choose a shared location for the files to sync to. Log in to the second local user, then log in to business account #2 on the Dropbox app. Choose the same root folder for the files to sync to as you did in the first step. Ensure that both of the folders are shared to all local users and all local users have read/write permissions.
jessygarnett
2 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
1.1KViews
1like
1Comment
Massive Data Upload and Sync Process - 20TB
Hi everyone, I am writing here to explain the process of our most recent data upload of 20TB to Dropbox via a 2019 Mac Pro connected to a 10Gbps Fiber line. The goal is to help those understand some of the issues we experienced as well as setting expectations to those who plan on uploading massive amounts of data at once. Below are the steps: Procure a 10Gb fiber PCIe card for the 2019 Mac Pro -Solo10G SFP+ 10GbE PCIe Card with SFP+ Module- after working closely with our Apple business rep, we found the this card which would work for our requirements. Yes, the 2019 Mac Pro has 10Gb ethernet ports, but we only had Fiber lines in our setup, not Ethernet. Not to mention adapters usually have 1Gb limits so this was not an acceptable solution either. We wanted to experience max speeds so we opted for a dedicated 10GbE fiber card. Speed Tests - we conducted speed tests after card installation and confirmed the speeds were around 4.5Gbps to 5Gbps upload and download. We could not figure out if the 50% falloff was on the 2019 Mac Pro side or on the ISP side. Still however, 5Gbps is no joke so we continued onward. (PS: We could not conduct speed tests via the Speedtest.net when on 4GB+ fiber. We had to download software to the PC/Mac to get true internet speeds.) Upload - We already had 20TB on the Dropbox Folder moved and was paused & ready to sync. We simply turned the computer on, ensured it had a good connection, and then turned Sync on via the Dropbox for Mac application. Thats it. The data automatically began to upload just as it would any other sync. Realized Speeds - Even with the 4.5 to 5Gbps up|down speeds, we only saw between 600Mbps to 900Mbps being uploaded to the Dropbox cloud. We hoped to see at least 2Gbps or 3Gbps being sent to Dropbox but this was not the case unfortunately. Still however, the ~750Mbps speed was enough to upload the 20TB in about three days which we were ok with. Note: At the beginning of the sync, the speeds were extremely slow which we contributed to the initial file indexing. About 3 hours in to the main sync is when the speeds started to get to their highest levels. Also, we checked our ISP speeds twice per day and at its LOWEST point we saw internet speeds of 3.5Gbps. Online-Only (Spoiler Warning - massive bottleneck!)- After about 70 hours of upload time, the full 20TB was on the cloud. Our Dropbox account confirmed the newly uploaded data storage amount. Our next step was to get this 20TB off of our 2019 Mac Pro external RAID (Pegasus R4i). Again, the process was just like any other file(s). We simply highlighted thew newly uploaded files and right-clicked, then selected "Make online-only". Simple right? Yeah, not so much. This is where we noticed lots of issues with our system. Essentially this 20TB "indexing?" caused us to essentially have to run Dropbox completely via the browser. There was no possibility of doing other things like downloading files via the Dropbox Mac application or Double clicking and a small JPEG opening up. The application simply said, "NO" and only had one task in mind, get these 20TB worth of files OFF of this hard drive. The good news? It did so, only taking a whopping 500 hours to remove these files off of the drive. A few notes: We were able to pause syncing during the "file-removal" / online-only process), restart the computer, resume syncing all without any error messages which was very impressive. I expected the application to crash, hang up, etc. Not at all. Note:We did NOT pause syncing during the main 20TB upload. Why did it take so long? I am not a software engineer but clearly it did not enjoy this task and it could be due to a number of reasons. Maybe simply the application was not built to handle 20TB? Maybe our computer did not have the power? Maybe it was due to the main Dropbox drive being on a RAID array? Who knows. Thats about all I wanted to say here. Again, the purpose of this small write up is to show how the software/cloud performed under extreme tasking. I would say overall very well considering. Hopefully this helps someone out there who's considering uploading massive amounts of data at once. TLDR: Uploading massive amounts of data via fiber internet = quick and easy. Removing this data off the drive / Making files "Online-only" = very time-consuming and not for the faint of heart. 2019 Mac Pro specs:
ehcropydoc
2 years ago Place Dropbox tips & tricks
4.2KViews
1like
3Comments