Sync icons missing in the Dropbox folder in Finder

Megan, that worked! Thank you very much! The Sophos Endpoint extension was interfering with Dropbox.

Hi weiskott, that's amazing news! 

Give me a shout if you need anything else!

Today it started working again as expected!

😄

I confirm the chosen solution works for me too. Thank you Megan!

I suspect that the culprit may be Adobe's Core Sync Helper - I am not using Adobe Cloud for file syncing (as I have Dropbox 😉) so I could safely disable it.

We can call that amazing news, can't we? Nick S.50

Awesome! If you need anything else, you know where to find me. 

Megan,

This solution brought the sync icons back, but they're wrong.  Specifically, if I have a folder with some files offline and other files online, that folder will show a cloud (all offline).

Screenshot attached.

Is there any way to know when folders have some files offline and some online without opening them up?  I have folders within folders within folders so opening them up is not a practical solution for me to know this.

                                                    - Paul

Hi Paul H.96. 

At the moment, there's no way to tell without opening the folder, but I'll pass this along to our team.

We appreciate your feedback about this and I'll make sure your comments are heard.

Thanks you Hannah for the quick and clear response!   The answer is disappointing so I hope they can resolve this soon.

According to Finder I have 116,293 items in my dropbox, well organized in a structure of folders within folders.  There's simply no way I can transverse that tree to see the sync status of all my individual files, I need it summarized at the folder level as in the past.

I am having this issue with both of my Dropbox accounts (personal and business). It only just started today when I was moving a lot of files, and I was getting the Finder message about duplicates. Then Dropbox quit unexpectedly. Now, I no longer see the Dropbox icons on my files, nor do I see any of the Finder Quick Actions. And, Dropbox continues to quit unexpectedly.

I have tried everything listed in this thread, in addition to other steps suggested in other threads. This includes:

- uninstall Dropbox, then reinstall

- double-check the System Preferences for Dropbox

- making sure the Finder Integration is checked

- force quit the Finder

- using Activity Selector to force quit all Dropbox processes, then start it up again, then relaunch the Finder

- I even turned off Adobe Core Sync Helper based on Nick S.50's comment

And then I read Walter's note about installing Dropbox on another newly created OS profile. It is working just fine on that other profile. I can also report that the files that I thought I had moved earlier today have not actually been moved. (So perhaps my Dropbox was having sync issues earlier than I realized, and then it crashed because what I was seeing and reality were totally out of sync.)

So far nothing has fixed the problem on my main profile, and Dropbox continues to quit unexpectedly about every 1-2 minutes so I just can't use it right now. I'm hoping someone here might have a suggestion for what I can do on my main OS profile to fix this. Let me know if any other info is needed.

Hi Peleela, do you have any proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router settings that could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains?
 

Hi Jay, no I don't have any of that software installed.

Hey Peleela, sorry to jump in here. 

The fact that the application gives an "unexpectedly quit" error, could potentially be caused by the very big move you were trying to make.

Has the app managed to finish syncing? Or is it quitting mid-sync?

When the app is open and running, what do you see when you hover over the Dropbox icon in your menu bar?

When I open Dropbox it says "syncing..." and then shortly thereafter it says your "files are up to date". Awhile after that, it will crash.

Thanks for that, Peleela.

You never mentioned it, but I assume you've also restarted your computer, right?

If you haven't, please do and let us know if that makes any difference.

Hi Hannah,

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I have rebooted my system. But just to be certain, I did so again. I have rebooted my computer, made sure that I had no other programs or non-Apple utilities running, started Dropbox - waited for it to start and state that everything is in sync. And I do not see the Dropbox icons nor the Dropbox Quick Actions. And then, Dropbox crashes after about 2 minutes.

I am wondering if there is a proper way to start from scratch. Could I delete everything from my computer and then try to get Dropbox to sync from scratch? Might that be the next step?

Thanks for the update here, Peleela and sorry for the delay.

I'd like you to try a more advanced reinstall of the Dropbox app, to see if that does the trick.

Please save and quit all programs accessing files in the Dropbox folder, and then follow these instructions:

Note: Please be sure to take note or take a screenshot of any Selective Sync settings you may have applied as well as the location of your Dropbox folder (if not in the default location) prior to re-installing, as you will need to match these settings upon re-install.

1) Stop Dropbox (If needed).

2) Download the newest version.

3) Open your Terminal app (Located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

4) Copy and paste the following lines into the Terminal, one at a time, and press ENTER after each one. Please make sure you copy and paste these commands (don't type them by hand), as getting them wrong could cause some harm. 

You'll be prompted for your computer's admin password (not your Dropbox password) after entering the first command. Keep in mind that the password field in the terminal will remain blank as you type your password. 

After you type it, just press ENTER. You'll know that these instructions complete normally once the initial line of text (called prompt) comes up again. 

Before pasting them, you will need to alter the commands, depending on the path and name of your Dropbox folder. For example this command:

sudo chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox

will become:

sudo chmod -R u+rw "/Users/yourusername/Dropbox" (make sure you use the quotation marks too):

sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME"

sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/Dropbox

sudo chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox

sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old

sudo chmod -N ~

sudo mv /Library/DropboxHelperTools ~/DropboxHelperTools.old

Please note that once the prompt displays, the instruction completes the requested task and is ready for the next command. If the command returns an error or does not respond after an hour, you may want to try restarting your computer and try these steps again.

5) Delete the Dropbox application from the Applications folder. You may need to provide your computer password in order to perform this action.

6) Open the .dmg file from step # 2 and double click the Dropbox icon to install Dropbox.

7) When Dropbox has finished installing, during the initial setup and sign in process, apply any Selective Sync settings you may have had prior to the reinstall and select the Dropbox folder location (if not in the default location).

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content, you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to, otherwise you will create a new Dropbox folder which will start to download your content again.

To select your already established folder on your drive, after signing in and choosing which folders to sync, and before you click on "Open my Dropbox folder", you should see an "Advanced Settings" link, click on this.

Then you can choose the parent folder of the already established Dropbox folder. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox (Team)" you'll want to select the folder "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/".

At the end of this process, after clicking "Open my Dropbox folder", it might take some time to re-index the files and sync any pending changes.

Let me know how it goes!

Hannah,

Thank you! Dropbox is no longer crashing, and I believe everything is finally back in sync (it will take awhile for my Teams files to complete). These were just the steps I needed to know to do a complete re-install, thank you so much!!

There were just two things you (or anyone else reading this thread) may want to know:

1. I waited for Dropbox to be in sync, and then I needed to Force Quit the Finder. Once I did that, all of my sync icons and the Dropbox Quick Actions indeed came back.

2. I actually have Dropbox Personal as well as Dropbox Teams. During the re-install, I was able to choose my current already established "personal" Dropbox folder without any issues. But when it came to selecting my already established "teams" Dropbox folder, I ran into an error. It said a folder with that name already existed, and I was either able to rename my "new" Teams folder or select another destination. I chose to just delete my Teams folder and let it sync from scratch, which resolved the error message. [I followed your instructions and deleted the configuration file from both my personal and my teams Dropbox folders.]

Thanks for keeping me in the loop. Peleela!

I'm happy to see that you were able to resolve the issue and that your Dropbox application works correctly now.

If you come across any other issues, or if you have any questions, let us know.

Have a great day!

Hi, I am having same issue after upgrading to Mac OS Ventura. If my Google Drive app is running, I don't see file statuses in my Dropbox folder

Right click menu shows dropbox actions, however file status if its downloading, offline or online is not showing.

I tried unticking and ticking back all of the dropbox extensions in Finder, relaunching Finder and restarting my computer, and I still don't see any file statuses.

As soon as I quit G Drive, it's all working again.

I had this issue long time ago in Catalina but then if got fixed. 

Somehow Dropbox and Google Drive don't like each other. What will happen if I install OneDrive as well ...😀

Hi radmitry, this issue may be related to other applications on your computer that also use the icon overlay and context menu functionality of Mac OS, to which there may be a limit.

@Jay Well, this is obviously a software glitch either Dropbox or Mac OS, I used to have the same in Mac OS Catalina, but then it got fixed with the update, and I was able to use G Drive and Dropbox at the same time, while seeing the file status in both.

Honestly this sounds like an excuse for me. They were working fine together in Catalina, why not Ventura then? There was a time with the same issue in Catalina in Google Drive, but later Google fixed it and both DP and GD were working together and showing the file status in Finder. It's kinda annoying to disable either one of them to see if my file is uploaded.

Hi JoeZL, thanks for posting here! 

You mentioned that this happens with files downloaded into Dropbox folders. 

Would you mind clarifying if this issue happens with files you downloaded from your account online, or if you use our desktop app? 

Does it happen with all of your files, or specific file types? 

Keep in mind that in the screenshot you attached, the error is coming from Word, not from Dropbox.

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!