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
10's of thousands of files DELETED without my interaction
I got a message from a client about an hour ago that several of our shared folders had been deleted. According to their Dropbox account, I was the one who deleted them. I did not. Looking through Deleted Files on the web interface I found many, many more files that had been deleted around the same time today. These are folders I share with several different clients. I don't know what the hell is going on. I have over 20,000 files currently being restored back to my local Dropbox drive.
I'm using the Dropbox app on a Windows 10 workstation (AMD 3900X, 64gb) with an internal SATA drive solely for Dropbox. The machine has been on with no problems all day. The only thing that has changed recently is that I've shared the local Dropbox folder via Windows SMB so that I can access the files on a new Mac Studio over my local network. (This is my workaround to deal with this issue: "Changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by Dropbox for macOS with Apple's File Provider API. Your Dropbox folder will be moved to ~/Library/CloudStorage." My Dropbox storage is 4tb, and I would never put it on my primary Mac drive even if it was big enough.) I have not attempted to install Dropbox on the Mac yet at all, just trying to work around it with the share.
Is there an issue with setting up your local Dropbox folder as a Windows share? I really, really don't want this to happen again.
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hey ms25, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.
Regarding the Dropbox application, there are certain system requirements that a computer needs to meet, in order for it to work correctly.
Any setup that's outside this scope, is not really supported, so its behavior cannot really be predicted.
Now that you restored your deleted files, I would suggest going through their version history, to find out which machine caused the deletion.
And we appreciate your feedback on this matter; I will make sure to pass your comments along to our team.
Let us know if you have any other questions.
Hi Hannah, Thanks for your reply. My machine meets the system requirements. Copied here is my email regarding this issue to Thomas at support:
I have Dropbox installed on a single machine: AMD 3900x, 64gb, C drive is an internal M.2 1tb drive, and I use an internal 6tb drive solely for Dropbox storage. The OS is Windows 10 Professional, version 22H2, build 19045.3086.According to file histories and events, the machine described above - again, my only machine running the Dropbox app - was the one that did this massive deletion of files. I was alerted to the situation by one of my clients who has shared their folders with me. They received a warning report that I had performed a Mass Deletion. I did not.Key points:- I did not move or delete any of these files on my file system, or anywhere else.- I don’t have the dropbox app on any other computer (I do have it on two iOS devices, but they were not implicated in this mass deletion.)- At some point on Wednesday or Thursday (6/14 or 6/15) I enabled (Windows) Sharing for the folder on my Dropbox dropbox drive that contains my app-synced Dropbox folder. More about this later...- Mass deletions began occurring at 6/16/2023 4:23 PM and continued for about 9 minutes until 4:32 PM.- About 25 minutes before the uninitiated mass deletions began, I created new folders and transferred new files to the Dropbox synced folder using a SMB network connection from a Mac running Ventura 13.4 to the Dropbox folder on the Windows machine that runs the Dropbox app.- The deletions seemed to be random… one folder might have had a few nested folders deleted, while others were untouched.More about enabling Sharing:I’m in the process of setting up a new primary workstation. It’s a Mac Studio M2 Max, 96gb, 2tb internal drive, Ventura 13.4. Ultimately, I need to access my Dropbox directories on this new machine. Preferably, I would like to run the Dropbox app on this machine so that I can take advantage of productivity enhancements like context menus for copying links, etc. I HAVE NOT YET INSTALLED DROPBOX ON THIS MACHINE. Doing research before I attempted to install Dropbox, I learned about this issue:…and:My Dropbox account has 4tb of storage which will not ever live in my built-in Mac OS drive. Not. Ever. (Nor will my Home/User folder ever live on an external drive.) I need to be able to use an external drive to for the app to manage Dropbox files. In the first link I shared above, it appears that some users are currently able to do a fresh install on MacOS Ventura and retaining the ability to use an external drive. I cannot afford to take a chance with my client’s files, especially now that my system has somehow deleted thousands of them without my knowledge.I need two issues resolved:1. I need to know why and how the mass deletion occurred. Is there an issue with SMB shares of the Dropbox folder? Using SMB seems to be the only thing that has changed.2. I need access to my 4tb shared folders on my new Mac. I need an officially supported way to do this.Thanks
