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Forum Discussion

Jerald E.'s avatar
Jerald E.
New member | Level 2
9 years ago

Dropbox has two entries in my PC Startup - Why?

Some of my computers have two startup entries for dropbox.  If you open Task Manager - Startup, there are two things using PC resources at startup.  The first one appears as "Dropbox (3)."  That is t...
Desktop
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  • gaspeer's avatar
    gaspeer
    8 years ago

    I received this support response to my support ticket last month. I didn't think to post it here, although I think I alerted the support person who sent me this answer of this forum discussion and thought he might share this information. Short answer to these questions regarding multiple Dropbox instances -- it's normal. Longer answer, I will cut and paste this information from Dropbox support:

     

    Frank, Aug 8, 6:54 AM PDT:

    Hi Garold,

    Thank you for contacting Dropbox!

    I can confirm that it is expected to see multiple Dropbox processes in task manager when Dropbox is running. The Dropbox application needs these additional components to monitor that everything is running correctly and that the desktop application is always healthy and up to date. The additional processes should consume a negligible amount of CPU and memory resources. If they are causing any performance issues on your computer please let me know.

    Thank you for reaching out with this query, I hope this helps.

    Regards,
    Frank

     

    Hope that support info will be helpful to others finding this discussion!

    Gary

troyerj's avatar
troyerj
Explorer | Level 4

Jumping in here as well - I have three showing up.  I followed the link above and submitted a help request but wanted to get on this thread for follow-up posts

Jane's avatar
Jane
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
8 years ago

Hey troyerj, 

 

Welcome aboard, let's work on that together!

 

I’ve located your open support ticket and my colleague has been awaiting your email back so that you troubleshoot together. At your convenience, could you check your inbox for their message and let me know if you have any issues locating the reply, so that I make sure that you receive it again. 
 
I hope this gets resolved soon, wishing you a great weekend ahead! 
 
Warm regards, 
JaneA
  • troyerj's avatar
    troyerj
    Explorer | Level 4
    8 years ago

    Done!  Thanks for the fast response!

     

     

    • kdb's avatar
      kdb
      New member | Level 2
      8 years ago

      What was ultimately the issue?

      • Jane's avatar
        Jane
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        8 years ago
        Hey @kdb & all, 
         
        I'm just updating this thread with the possible cause, as well as the resolution that was suggested. 
         
        It's possible that an invalid registry key was causing more than one processes to load during startup. To resolve that, I’d suggest a full re-installation of the software. Please follow the steps below: 
         
        #1. Quit Dropbox by clicking on the Dropbox icon on your system tray, then click on the gear icon and select "Quit Dropbox".
         
        #2. Uninstall Dropbox:
         
        #3. When the uninstall finishes, please restart your computer to ensure that the uninstall is complete.
         
        #4. After this, please proceed to delete remaining registry entries:
         
        a) Click the Start button. Type REGEDIT in the search box and press Enter.
         
        b) In the Registry Editor, navigate into the following locations until you find the keys for "Dropbox" and "DropboxUpdate", they will be in either or both of the following two locations:
         
        HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\
        HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
         
        c) In both or either of these folders, please delete only the "Dropbox" and "DropboxUpdate" folders by right-clicking on the individual folders and selecting "Delete".
         
        #5. Then, please delete the Dropbox remaining folders:
         
        a) Open a Windows File Explorer (not Internet Explorer). 
         
        b) Type %LOCALAPPDATA% into the address bar (include the % percent signs) and press enter. 
         
        c) Delete the folder "Dropbox" from the resulting window. 
         
        d) Please repeat these steps with the following folders as well (it's OK if you don't find a Dropbox folder in any of those locations): 
         
        %APPDATA% 
        %PROGRAMFILES% 
        %PROGRAMFILES(x86)% 
        e) Then restart your system.
         
        Please note that deleting any of these folders will not delete the files in your Dropbox folder.
         
        #6. Download the newest version of Dropbox and double click on the downloaded file 
         
        #7. During the initial setup and sign in process apply any Selective Sync settings you may have had prior to the reinstall and select the Dropbox folder location (if not in the default location).
         
        IMPORTANT NOTE: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to, otherwise you will create a new Dropbox folder and start to download your content again.
         
        At the end of this process, after clicking "Open my Dropbox folder", it might take some time to re-index the files and sync any pending changes. Please note that any changes made to the files in the Dropbox folder, the web interface or other linked devices while the folder was "off-line" may generate conflicted copies.
         
        Hope this is helpful to you, please let me know the results here! 
         
        Warm regards, 
        JaneA
  • marsman82's avatar
    marsman82
    New member | Level 2
    8 years ago

    Same problem here. Can you help me out?

    • Sanchez's avatar
      Sanchez
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
      8 years ago
      Hey everyone, 

      We’ll keep this thread open for future updates, but I urge you to submit a support ticket so that our team can continue to investigate this issue. 

      Thanks in advance! 
      • miss_fiendish's avatar
        miss_fiendish
        Explorer | Level 4
        8 years ago

        i have the same issue - 3 instances for me. clearly it's not a one off issue. dropbox, please tell us how to fix, thanks.

         

        for what it's worth, i see the same thing with citrix and chrome, so wondering if a virus could be doing it??

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