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Forum Discussion
Dropbox app freezing Windows Explorer
Hi!
I'm having troubles with the Dropbox desktop app. It is syncing correctly, and I can access it just fine through my Windows Explorer, but after selecting a file it crashes my Explorer.
I have tried several fixes, including making an exception for Dropbox in my Virusscanner and checking Firewall Issues. Also tried re-installing it (several times).
Can you suggest an alternative fix?
Kind regards,
Oscar
I am using dropbox desktop app for many years without encountering any problems. Today, i tried to open the dropbox folder on my pc with windows explorer and it froze for about a minute before opening, same goes for every sub folder, i tried to reinstall the application, cleaning cache and temp files, nothing worked. I also noticed when i uninstall the application and try to browse the remaining dropbox folder, it works like a charm without any problem, but when i install dropbox, it starts freezing again. Any ideas?
My operastion system is windows 10 64bit.
Maybe you have to defragment your hard disk! I have the same problem before and i solve it by defragment and do a check on the hard disk.
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
I'm sorry to hear about this agomulka. Let's have a look into this now!
Can you first send me a screenshot of the desktop app's exact status as shown within your computer's system tray to get a better idea of what could be causing this?
Thanks!
- Jane
I have already tried Advanced re-installation following the steps of that page and it didn't fix the issue.
I have the same problem. Did you find a solution?
- Jane
Hey Pick_up_the_box, I’m afraid that I don’t have an update on my end, as the last ticket was closed in our system due to inactivity, however I’ll do my best to follow-up with you from where you've left off. I’m wondering if you’ve already tried any of the troubleshooting steps posted here previously, please let me know in your next message if possible & we’ll take it from there!
Hi,
Since I moved to paid Dropbox the performance of my Notebook have degrated a lot.
When Creating a new Folder or file, as well as just attempting to rename a file, the system freeze for 10 to 20 seconds. I have a second PC synched and I get the ping that the new folder was created in half of that time, but I still don't see the new folder created for 10+ sec.
I have 200GB out of 2TB in dropbox and the problem is on both Notebook I have. On one I am using Selective Sync and the other Notebook I am synching all folders except a couple.
I am using Windows 10, on a Lenovo Thinkpad with a i7 8th gen with 16GB RAM , so even if Dropbox is consuming a lot of RAM I was assuming the large RAM consumption is not a problem.
Yet, I cannot stand the system soo slow and continuew freezing everytime I create or rename a file or folder.
Did you see a similar problem? Any suggestion on how to resolve, please?
I like the Dropbox functionality and would like keeping using it but I cannot work with such stops on my working so frequent and impacting productivity.
Thanks for your attention.
Best regards,
Peppe
- Daphne
Hey PeppeVaro, I hope you're well today!
So I can get a better idea of your current set up, can you let me know the following:
- Which version of the desktop app do you have installed?
- Can you check for symlinks within the Dropbox folder with the steps in point 7 here?
- Is there any change if you temporarily disable any antivirus software running?
Let me know what you find and we'll go from there.
Thanks!
Hi,
I am using Dropbox 87.4.138 (up to date)
I checked Symlinks and I have only the one of the folders that are SmartSync, plus some files in the .dropbox.cache folder.
Antivirus disables doesn't change performances.
Thanks for your attention
Peppe
I am also still having this issue. I tried literally every single troubleshooting step here and nothing. The problem is only fixed when Dropbox is uninstalled.
EDIT: So I noticed that my iCloud Drive folder was the only other folder that would freeze up when selected. When I started up the iCloud application, the problem suddenly went away for both iCloud and Dropbox folders. Strange...
- Check the windows event log. My issue got fixed by sending the appcrash events
For this case, it sounds like both apps are monitor a common folder
- Walter
Hey there Oscar - sorry to hear about this.
Does this happen with files only in your Dropbox Folder? Does it affect all files?
Could you try an advanced re-install and let me know if this helped?
Thanks!
I have the same problem. Can you post the solution publicly, so others can benefit too?
Hi Pol,
As Walter explained, my solve was, strangely, opening a Word document to Desktop from Dropbox in my webbrowser.
I hope this works for you! Otherwise Walter can assist you quite well in finding an alternate solution.
Hi Walter, thanks for your reply.
I have tried the advanced re-install, to no avail.
The freeze occurs only when accessing Dropbox in Windows Explorer.
Any other ideas?
Kind regards,
Oscar
- Walter
Thanks for the speedy response OscarV - sorry to hear this persists after an advanced re-install too.
May I reach out to you via email to work on this together? If you'd like to, you can also log a ticket from your end and let me know the ticket ID so I can get my hands on it.
In either case, please keep me posted.
We were having the same problem: Using Dropbox synced to our PC, trying to open a file in Explorer would cause it to freeze and then Windows Explorer would be "not responding." We reinstalled Dropbox several times. We did an "Advanced Reinstall" of Dropbox, that also didn't work.
We noticed that it was only happening with MS Office files (word, excel, ppt). So, our last try was to reinstall Office 365. So far, THAT has seemed to work.
Just wanted to share in case other people are checking this thread. The issue seems to be pervasive, and the Dropbox Tech Support we talked to did not seem to have this solution in his checklist. (Neither did Dell, to be fair.)
I need to apologize. I've been hard on Dropbox in this thread. I started having problems with other cloud storage and synch platforms including MS OneDrive. Ultimately the only one I never had problems with was Google backup and sync. I finally bit the bullet and contacted MS and ultimately reinstalled my Windows 10 PRO OS and then reinstalled all my apps and programs. Now I am having not problems with Dropbox or any of the other cloud storage & synch platforms. They all behave as expected.
It is a fairly new Dell Vostro (about 6 months old). I tried to install one of the many Dell apps and immediately started crashing the PC. I got that app uninstalled and no more problems since then. I suspect there was a conflict somewhere between drivers, the Dell bloatware and the OS that created problems but I'm just happy things are now working.
I only shared all this to give others an idea of what may be required - It isn't a fun one to consider and go thru but it does work.
Hello,
I changed my main drive a couple of weeks ago from a 250GB SSD to a 1TB M.2 Drive.
I simply cloned the main drive and since then I have had this problem.
I can access every file on Dropbox using any program or using the Dropbox Desktop App, but not from the file explorer directly.
As soon as I click the Dropbox folder, the file explorer crashes for about a minute, then resumes activity. If click any folder or file, it crashes again.
I know there are a number of other posts regarding the same problem, but none of the solutions presented had any effect.
I tried advanced reinstalation multiple times and didn't work. As soon as I reinstall Dropbox on my system the problem persists.
Also tried pausing the Windows Firewall to check for conflicts. The problem still persists.
Tried moving the Dropbox folder to a different drive. Still a problem.
Are there any other suggestions?
Thank you.
Hi there @tcandeias,
I hope you a nice day and would like to know if you tried my solution of opening a new Admin user on your system and opening you account in the other account and you will have to re-download all your files from dropbox again.
For me this is the only solution that worked and now i have moved all my work to the other new account.
SOLVED
For me the problem was windows, i had to create a new user. Try create a new user to see if the problems persists.
I have just installed dropbox on a new high spec desktop computer with Windows 10 x64 Corei5-9300H CPU, 16GB RAM. I've put the Dropbox Folders on a second SSD hard disk which is secured with Bitlocker. I have to unlock the drive with a password before running dropbox when i reboot, which is fine. My problem is that the Windows Explorer Right-Click menu is now ridiculously slow on any folder or file within the Dropbox folders. It takes about 30 seconds before the right click menu is displayed. There's no heavy CPU usage. It must be the Dropbox Windows Explorer shell extension causing problems. Please help.
My dropbox client is 94.4.441. I've tried disabling Windows Security Real-Time Protecion but it makes no difference. The files and folders are fully synced and i have a high speed WiFi internet connection.
Additional info, its also slow if you double click folders in the right hand pane of Windows Explorer but its fine if you navigate the folders using the left hand pane! Weird.- Walter
Hi RichT; welcome to our Community!
When it comes to the version of our desktop app which you're using, I guess you meant 95.4.441 since this is the most recent, stable build - right?
Have you tried re-installing the app since you first noticed this happening?
If you haven't yet, please give it a go and let me know the results as soon as possible so we can look further into this.
Thanks a bunch!
Yes sorry i meant 95.4.441. Its updated now to an even newer version 96.4.172 but the problem still exists. I did reinstall and it made no difference. Its clearly a bug in the Dropbox Shell Extension. Here's a dump of all the shell extensions from Autoruns.
Dear all!
I started with this issue a couple of days ago and tried all the different solutions you have offered. Unfortunately none of them did the trick. After some tryouts I was able to solve the problem, herein I post the step-by-step.
1. Open the Windows Security Center.
2. Go to Firewall.
3. Click on advanced config.
4. Once the advanced settings panel opens, click on Inbound.
5. Look up Dropbox and double click on it.
6. Click on the tab "Programs and services"
7. Where it says "this program" click on exam and go to dropbox.exe which should be on program files.
8. Apply and accept. Close everything and reboot.
I hope this step-by-step helps you solves the issue.
PD. Sorry if the translation of the different tags is not accurate, I'm using Win10 x64 in Spanish.
I have set up Dropbox to download all content to my PC. I am using mostly Dropbox via File Explorer on Win10 rather than using the Dropbox app as it is more convenient for me. Starting from today when opening Dropbox folder on PC the file explorer just freezes and the blue ring is gouning around forever. Windows is not even showing that folder is not responding it just freezes. Some times it takes many minutes when next folder opens at the end. This happened suddenly as have been using Dropbox for many years without problems. Everything works while using Dropbox app but when using file explorer everything freezes and have to use Task Manager to close the stuck window. Have tried almost everything - tried unlinking and re-linking PC, tried uninstalling the app and deleted all files from PC and after re-installation everything downloaded again but this did not help. Tried also everything according to this article: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/advanced-reinstall but this did not solve anything. What can I do now?
- Lusil
Hi 2admiral, thanks for nudging us on the Dropbox Community.
I moved your post here, where other users have described experiencing a similar behavior.
When you get the chance, have a look at what they mention did the trick for them, and let us know if you have any questions.
Cheers!
Dear dropbox team and Hi everyone, Pls kindly to help !!
Dropbox files are opening VERY slowly in windows explorer even 1KB .txt file
But dropbox destop app and dropbox.com on web is working normally.
and I already tried as below:
1- Re-Installall as advanced
2- Moving Location file storage
My PC perfomance is not high loading
-Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 18363)
-Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K
-RAM: 32GB-GeForce RTX 2080 8G
-SSD Samsung 970 Pro 512GB X 2
-Dropbox V96.4.172
Space: 43.4% Of 2.2GB used
Thanks.- Jay
Hi Rady Ry, thanks for posting today!
I’ve merged your post here with other users experiencing the same issue.
If you’re not on a Dropbox Basic plan with more than 3 devices connected, could you try an advanced reinstall of the app using the steps in this link?
Let me know how it goes!
Similar/same Issue over here. Dropbox just shows there are 59 files to synchronise, but it never finishes one of them. Interestingly, it still uploads the other changes. But it blocks all of the drive that its installed on, so that I can't work on documents or anything.
Absolute gamebreaker the only thing that helped for me was a complete reinstall, but thats a lot of work to back up everything and set up everything again. I did it last month, but after a couple of weeks, the problem just suddenly appeared again.
Looks like the problem is known for quite some time now and nothing gets fixed.
@support team:
Please don't just suggest an advanced reinstall, I read the thread, it didn't work for anyone. And even more so: its not a solution to do so every week.
