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Forum Discussion

PhantomRick's avatar
PhantomRick
Explorer | Level 3
5 years ago

Android scratch folder disappeared

Hi, I have been using dropbox for a while to sync audiobooks between my pc & phone (S9+). After a phone restart today, the scratch folder & all files are missing. I tried redownloading the files & dropbox says it ha(green arrow) but I can't find them & still no scratch folder.

I've tried restarting the phone, reinstalling dropbox, checking the sd card, but no go.

Suggestions?
  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    5 years ago

    Hi PhantomRick, this is due to a recent change in the Android app, which you can see more details about here.

  • Здравко's avatar
    Здравко
    Legendary | Level 20

    Hi PhantomRick,

    Have you used "Make available offline" feature on the target files/folders to make sure they won't get off on some circumstances (primarily memory need)? 🤔

    Hope this helps.

    • PhantomRick's avatar
      PhantomRick
      Explorer | Level 3
      I've been using dropbox exclusively for my audiobooks for a couple of years now. I have to manually download the files & had the scratch/[user] directory tagged in the audiobook player library. The scratch/[user] directories have disappeared. Files I download / mark for offline within the dropbox app are still saying they have been downloaded (green down arrow), but I can't find them on neither the internal storage nor the sd card.
      • Здравко's avatar
        Здравко
        Legendary | Level 20

        PhantomRick wrote:
        ... I have to manually download the files & had the scratch/[user] directory ...

        Hi again PhantomRick,

        I have no idea why you will need to "manually download" anything. 🤷 Dropbox application take care for this, usually, and keeps the content in sync. The "scratch" directory is something for internal use and isn't officially supported! Actual place template (relative to phone common data directory) is: Android/data/com.dropbox.android/files/[user id]/scratch 🧐 which is something different from that what is in your post (order of 'scratch' and '[user]' got swapped, at least)!

         


        PhantomRick wrote:
        ... The scratch/[user] directories have disappeared. ...

        If not pointed explicitly for offline access, on some circumstances, as pointed already, the 'scratch' content could get 'disappeared'!

         


        PhantomRick wrote:
        ... Files I download / mark for offline within the dropbox app are still saying they have been downloaded (green down arrow), but I can't find them on neither the internal storage nor the sd card.

        Here I have to confess, I'm getting confused. Have you 'downloaded' or 'mark for offline' the things? These are two completely different things! Don't mess them. If you have downloaded something, it should be on same place where it have been downloaded, if not removed somehow. Dropbox doesn't anything to do here. If you have marked something for offline access, it should be on the pointed place above. If you can't find it, probably you're looking on wrong place, I'm guessing.

         

        Hope this add enough clarity.

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