You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

adslimq2's avatar
adslimq2
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago

How to ignore/exclude parent.lock file?

Hi,

I'm using Dropbox desktop v186.4.6207 on Windows 11.

I keep my Thunderbird mail on Dropbox, which works fine, usually.  It can never sync the file 'parent.lock' as this is in use by Thunderbird to prevent corruption of data if I tried to open the email program on two computers, simultaneously.

Recently a problem has begun where D'box is using a lot of CPU, trying to sync 'parent.lock'.  This is causing high CPU temperatures.

I have tried the Powershell commands seen at https://help.dropbox.com/sync/ignored-files - which seems to be missing a '1' at the end, BTW.

That changed nothing.

Is there a way to ignore 'parent.lock'?

Desktop
Sync
  • adslimq2's avatar
    adslimq2
    2 years ago

    I may have found the problem, and it is not with Dropbox or Thunderbird.

    My main concern was high CPU temperatures, and therefore fan noise on my Legion laptop, when both D'box and T'bird are running.

    A search of causes for this gave me a suggestion to change "advanced power settings", "processor power management" in Windows.  For the past 30 minutes with both programmes running, the CPU temperature has been normal, with no fans running.

     

    Thanks for the replies.  If it stays all quiet I will mark this solved in a little while.

  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    2 years ago
    adslimq2 wrote:

    I have tried the Powershell commands seen at https://help.dropbox.com/sync/ignored-files ... That changed nothing.

    The help article you link describes the only method of ignoring a file or folder, which appears to be working fine (I just tested it). After you used it to ignore the file, did you restart Dropbox (or reboot)? I didn't have to, but the test file was already synced and wasn't in the process of trying to be synced.

    • adslimq2's avatar
      adslimq2
      Helpful | Level 6
      2 years ago

      Yes, I restarted Dropbox and Thunderbird.  The file still has a white cross in a red circle in Explorer, and "Can't sync" in the Dropbox tray icon.

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        2 years ago

        Hi adslimq2, just to check, did you add a 1 when you were using the command from that article? What was the message you received when ignoring the file?

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!