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Forum Discussion

sfsam's avatar
sfsam
New member | Level 1
3 months ago

Dropbox on Mac stuck syncing indefinitely for days.

The Dropbox icon in my menu bar has shown the syncing icon for days. I've tried restarting the app as well as restarting my computer. When Dropbox starts up, it says "Syncing 2 files..." for a little...
desktop
Mac
sync
Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
3 months ago

Hey there, sfsam, happy Monday! 

Also, you did an amazing job troubleshooting this on your end, well done!

You mentioned you're using File Provider for a while now, so is it safe to assume that the app hasn't been stuck "syncing" content ever since this migration happened?

Is it possible to see which files are syncing based upon the icons of the folders in Finder?

Also can you try these steps here to fix your hardlinks and permissions and let me know how that goes, please.

Keep me posted!

sfsam's avatar
sfsam
New member | Level 1
3 months ago

Hi Megan,

I've had File Provider working for many months. The syncing issue I'm reporting started several days ago. The icons in the Dropbox folder are all green circles with the white checkmark.

I did the 'Fix hardlinks' button and it reported that it worked. But the syncing issue persists. I then did the 'Fix permissions' button and it reported that it was unable to fix permissions. I restarted Dropbox after each button. As before, it says 'Syncing 2 files...' for a minute or so and then changes to just 'Syncing...'. The menu bar icon has the syncing badge.

  • Nancy's avatar
    Nancy
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    3 months ago

    Hope you don’t mind if I jump in, sfsam. Have you already tried reinstalling the Dropbox app, as well? 

    If not, can you also give it a go and let me know about any updates?

    • sfsam's avatar
      sfsam
      New member | Level 1
      3 months ago

      Hi Nancy,

      Yes, I tried that. Same result: "Syncing 2 files" at first and then indefinitely "Syncing..." indefinitely.

      v214.3.5170

      • Nancy's avatar
        Nancy
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        3 months ago

        Thanks for clarifying! v214.3.5170 is our beta app version, which is experimental; did you install it to test if the issue would persist? I’m just asking because I can see you were running the stable version initially.

        Are you still having issues if you disable "Early access" from here and go back to the stable version?

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