Dropbox no longer overwriting files

Hey Blackie1, did you get a chance to look for the ticket number Megan asked for?

As for you, MoeandRob, I moved your post to this relevant thread.

Can you let me know a bit more about your situation? 

Are you on the most recent version of iPad OS and Dropbox?

Any additional info you can give me, would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Hi Hannah,

Using iOS 15.5. It’s on an iPad eighth generation. It also does the same thing on my phone which is an iPhone Max 10.

I tried on installing dropbox and reinstalling. This happened once in the past I think maybe a little over a year ago after an update. When the next update came around it worked properly again. It will upload the file but keeps  the old file so I have to delete the old file to make sure I am updated. It won’t prompt me with (file already exists do you want to overwrite?)

I have spent the last month in the most infuriating dialogue with Dropbox staff regarding this issue. The first person told me about 4 or 5 times I need to open Illustrator files from the Dropbox app itself on iPad, even though this cannot be done. The second person said "everything points to this being a problem with Illustrator" even though I had said over and over that this is happening on multiple apps. Then they told me several times that I need to update my iPad, even though I had already said my iPad is up to date. Each email takes several days for them to respond, and each response ignores something I've already said, ignores something I've asked, provides illogical advice, or tells me to do something that Dropbox can't do.

I was told there was no reason why this should be happening, according to one Dropbox engineer. 

Last word of advice was to contact each external app and tell them to fix it.

I don't think Dropbox staff understand how their own app works, and honestly I think the right advice is to switch to another service. I've never been so frustrated with a support team in my life.

Hi all, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

For anyone affected, would it be OK if we reach out via email to investigate a bit further? 

Has the Dropbox staff done some due diligence to investigate and try to reproduce the problem?  Several have provided repro steps- has anyone from Dropbox tried to follow them and see the problem for themselves?  If not, what is the point of contacting people by email for more info?  I was a software engineer for almost 20 years.  We didn't badger people to try this, try that, try this other thing; we took the necessary information, and then investigated on our own.  The fact that this issue existed before, was resolved, and then reappeared after a Dropbox app update is more than weighty evidence that problem is in the app.

Hi aisb, thanks very much for your comments, rest assured that they will be passed along to our team.

Would you mind sending over the ticket numbers from the communications you've been having with our support team?

As for you clira, I completely understand where you're coming from, but know that we're definitely looking at this on our end as well.

Would you like us to contact you via email?

This is the same bug I've noticed about a year ago. It's intermittent: it comes, you suffer it for about 2-3 months, and then goes with the nth Dropbox update. The sad part is the support staff is absolutely of no help (or worse) and they like to send instructions like: "please, turn off your TV set, wait for 5 minutes, then turn on again and everything should work again...", no matter you're not asking for help about any TV set at all...

Thanks for the feedback here, Nousmedis, I'll make sure your comments are passed along to our team.

Are you also facing this issue?

The most recent ticket number I’ve been using is #17021399. The one before was #16958130.

They keep giving me busy work. Now I’m being asked to provide evidence of the same issue happening on other apps (if they had asked me for this upfront I’d be less annoyed, but this is after weeks of this person simply ignoring this element of the problem and telling me to update my already updated iPad or contact Illustrator).

Then, they said I needed to respond to this request within “a few days” or they’d close the ticket. The next day, before I’ve had time to attend to it, of course they closed it. I’m so beyond mad. I’ve wasted so much time on this issue. 

I agree with the person who said there should be some onus on the support team to replicate the problem, but they ignored me when I asked if they’ve tried to do the same thing on their end with an iPad.

I’m so tired of this dialogue, but I’m also feeling pretty furious at the communication I’ve been trudging through. If they don’t know what’s wrong and it therefore can’t be fixed, that’s fine, just tell me that so I can switch services. Being sent in circles is the worst.

Hi aisb, from the ticket ID, it appears you're in communication with a specialist, so they would be better placed to assist you further. 

I've gone ahead and prioritized the ticket in order to expedite matters on your behalf.

“specialist”

For the life of me, I can’t understand why they can’t just investigate, reproduce, and fix this on their own.  We have all provided adequate repro steps.  I’m a freeloading no-pay user so I have stepped back but this affects their paid users as well.

This seems to be a common thing, unfortunately.  Amazon always takes the “wear them down and hope they go away” approach.

Isn't editing files in Illustrator, or a spreadsheet in Numbers(in my case) and then exporting the updated file to Dropbox a normal and anticipated use case for Dropbox?  The thing is- it used to work.  They broke it in an update, just like they have before.