v142.3.4187 Native M1 Silicon?

Ok, so when the new Dropbox beta asked me about updating, I did not know that it would have to re-sync *all* of my 500,000+ files (why?!), and 8 hrs later (I'm on a 500Mbit connection), the process is still going. That alone, I found annoying, to put it lightly.

But why are the sync icons now reduced to a freakin' cloud-with-arrow and cloud without arrow? I read what was said about Apple's new restrictions and bla, bla, bla, but aren't icons just symbols that can be anything the developer wants them to be? Why can't a gray cloud icon signifying that something is actually already downloaded/synced be a green arrow instead, like it used to be? It seems to be obvious that most people are looking for a green checkmark when a file is downloaded/synced, so why replace it with a puny, faint, cloud that I have to actually look for, amongst all the almost identical cloud icons with a tiny arrow in it?!

Yes, I do realize that I sound borderline hostile, but after waiting for over a year to get an AS-native version of the Dropbox client, and then getting one that takes away logical conventions and just changes the location of all the files without a proper warning or explanation, that makes me borderline hostile.

Seriously, Dropbox, please start being the technology leader you pretend to be. There are other solutions out there, so don't be so arrogant as to think we are tied to you without options. Explain to people what you're about to do with their entire file library and why. And please bring back the green checkmarks...it's just a symbol...of you hearing us.

Dropbox techs have told me that, with the move to Apple's File Provider framework, their hands were tied re the iconography but that's bullsh*t. Google Drive has recently migrated to the FP framework and they still have nice green checkmarks next to sync'd files.

...they can't use the green checkmarks because of COVID...no, wait, because of the war in the Ukraine...lame excuses.

It's just a symbol...there is no difference between embedding a symbol that looks like a cloud or one that looks like a green checkmark, technically speaking!

On a more immediate and pragmatic note, what could be the reason that my Dropbox client just shows a red exclamation mark after "finishing" the syncing of all my files (or maybe not)...I have around 500k files on Dropbox and it synced all afternoon and into the night, yesterday and today, but didn't seem to finish the sync entirely...it still shows "Syncing..." at the bottom of the client, even after quitting and restarting it.

I'm on a MacBook Air M1, 16GB, Monterey 12.4

tillkrueger I would definitely not trust Dropbox to have migrated your local Dropbox folder successfully to its new location, especially if it took that long and that ominous red exclamation mark is turning up; par for the course that all you get is an indication that something isn't right with absolutely no indication of what the problem is. I think the only way to ensure the upgrade has been done properly is to rename or move your current Dropbox out of /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/CloudStorage  (as a possibly useful possibly useless backup), download the current version for MacOS from https://www.dropbox.com/downloading (opt out of the beta testing), and install it as if you were on a new machine, so that your entire Dropbox folder is downloaded anew. →HERE← is a useful guide that another forum user put together that brought together the experiences of a number of frustrated users.

thank you for that, jlaguna, and I will try to do that, but when I tried to follow your link to the guide, all I got was:

tillkrueger Here's the guide that JWL Photo put together. The only thing I would suggest changing at this point is step 7; the current releases are compiled for Apple Silicon so there is no need to install a (quite possibly buggy) beta. Just download the current stable release from HERE. 

*****

Hi!

So you want to install the MacOS 12.3 beta?

There are several things you should know first:

• Do not expect any support from the Dropbox team.
• Do not expect to find any official documentation on how to install the beta or what the builds are supposed to do/fix.
• You are on your own (other than help from the community)!

Still want to do it? Okay, here is what I have cobbled together from my own experiences and from others contributing to various threads here on the community, like from @jlaguna and @Andy P.4 :

1. Make sure everything is currently synced using your current stable build of the app.
2. Backup anything on Dropbox that you can't afford to lose.
3. Make sure you have "Early Releases" turned on in your online settings.
4. Disconnect your current app/computer from your account by either:
   
   1. Signing out of the app on your computer OR
   2. Going to your account online and disconnecting your computer (device) from the account in the Security section of your settings (probably the better way to do it).
5. Uninstall the Dropbox app from your computer (using an uninstaller like CleanMyMac is best).
6. OPTIONAL: Trash the old Dropbox folder from Users/<YourUserID> (the new files will be in /Users/<YourUserID>/Library/CloudStorage, so the old files are just taking up space)
7. Download the most recent beta "Universal Installer" from Desktop Client Builds (Note: the version number may not correspond to what you actually get installed. E.g., my current beta version is 145.2.2188, while the latest downloadable beta version is 144.3.4464. Using the universal installer [with "Early Releases" turned on] will get you whatever is the latest MacOS 12.3 version.)
8. Install the app and it should walk you through setting it up as a "clean" install and require you to sign back in. This will trigger a new synchronization of your (chosen) folders. You will have to download any that you want offline again, since they are being moved to CloudStorage (which is why I said you could remove your old folder that showed up under "Favorites.")
9. Things should work at that point!

Good luck and happy syncing!

jlaguna Thank you so much for your kind help and instructions.
While I am willing to try this, I am also considering making this a last-ditch effort to find a reason to stay with Dropbox as my cloud storage provider of choice. If I think about how many days and hours I wasted with exercises like this, I wonder what still ties me to Dropbox, other than habit. But that's another discussion 😉

For now, I shall give it my best shot, with your help and the help of the community, since Dropbox itself seems to have little interest to help its customers more directly.

To follow the instructions to a T, I am just now backing up what was synced over the past 2 days. Am I correct in assuming that during this process, I will have to choose again all the folders that I want to keep locally? Because that would be a calamity since it took me literally years to prune my local file copies based on which ones I most often access during work on my dozens of projects. Is there some way you know of to keep the settings of what is on- and offline from my previous installation?

If I can't do that, I wonder whether I should even do this exercise, or use this opportunity to upload all of my files to one of my other cloud storage services and call it a day.

...maybe the better question would be: which file contains the settings for what is saved locally and which files are online-only?

When I submit the Dropbox app to be uninstalled completely by AppCleaner, I get this...any idea which of these I should not uninstall or back up to keep at least that sync setting?

Dropbox dependencies

...to make some progress, I decided to start from scratch and deleted everything related to Dropbox, including the 335GB of synced data.

Upon installing the latest stable build (148.4.4519), I decided to set the Dropbox folder location to /Users/till/Library/Cloud Storage/Dropbox, since that was the location that the newest beta expected...since this appears to be the location that Dropbox will expect when I do upgrade to the latest version, I am hoping that such a version will *not* have to sync all files again, as it did yesterday.

It is now syncing the offline-only folders, saying that it will take about an hour...seems like a long time for nothing but an empty directory structure, don't you think?

What makes me a bit concerned is that the Dropbox folder and all of its content do *not* show any Dropbox icons, no right-click menu options for Dropbox either...will those not appear until after all folders are synced, or is something already not working correctly?

Let's see where this process takes me.

After about an hour of counting down from my ~420k files, it went all the way down to "45 files, 1 sec", but then jumped back up to "487 files, 13 sec", then "5 files, 1 sec", then "1327 files, 40 sec", and so on, and so on, for the past half hour...it just keeps cycling through what appears to be random numbers of remaining files, and won't finish syncing.

Another 3,5 hrs wasted, so far. Pffffff.... 😕

What is it with Dropbox that makes it so unreliable?

well, since Dropbox was obviously in a mad cycle of not wanting to finish the last 5 files (or is it 45 or 1327, or 328, or... ?!), I restarted my computer, logged out of Dropbox and back in, and now it behaves as if I have just installed it, starting from scratch at ~420k files to sync...this is ridiculous.

Half a Sunday wasted 😞

...it's been hung up on just "Syncing...", with no other information. Back to square one.

I don't think I can handle any more of this...but my workflow is invested in Dropbox, sharing folders with tons of clients and collaborators.

And now, 3hrs later, when I just looked at it again...it says "Your files are up to date."...Heureka!

jlaguna Thanks again for your instructions...bumpy ride it was, but with redemption at the end 😄

However, I still don't have any Dropbox icons or controls in the right-click menu, so what could be causing that?

tillkrueger Wow, what a journey, I hope you are truly at then end of it! FWIW, since my own reinstallation a couple of months ago, Dropbox seems to be exhibiting the speed and reliability that we'd gotten used to and that justified the comparatively steep monthly cost. As for the iconography, a couple of Dropbox techs that I communicated with claimed that it is Apple's doing, that the mandated switch to Apple's File Provider framework (part of which was the required move to ~/Library/CloudStorage) meant loss of control over the iconography. But, as I noted in another post, that's bullsh*t — Google Drive has recently switched to the File Provider framework and they managed to preserve their iconography. (I should note, too, that Google's update to the new framework was utterly seamless, but for having to give some new permissions to the Drive app when requested. It is mystifying why Dropbox's update has been such a dog's breakfast.)

As for the loss of the context-sensitive menu options, have you tried relaunching the Finder (accessible via the Force Quit option under the Apple menu icon to the far left of the menu bar)?

No, I mean that I have zero control over my Dropbox folders and files in Finder now...no icons at all for what is offline and what is local, no context menu at all, and no way to sync anything.

Yes, I have force restarted the Finder after switching off all other Finder extensions in my System Preferences. Dropbox is not really running, right now. I have rebooted my computer as well, but Dropbox is dead, atm.

Aargh, what a nightmare. What happens when you try to restart Dropbox manually? Do you get any error messages when you click on the Dropbox icon (if it even appears…)?

Yeah, Dropbox has been about as far from "set-it-and-forget-it" as one can get.

When I manually quit and restart the Dropbox client, it changes nothing...tried a few times, including restarting the MacBook Air, but Dropbox is just a dumb folder now, like all other folders (except my other cloud storage folders, which behave as they should).

A real problem, too, as I rely heavily on it working...and now I have no way of syncing down all the project files that I have to work with...will have to copy them manually from my backup, which will take hours, again, and is just super annoying, as versioning will not work, then, which I also rely on heavily.

Thanks for continuing to do what you can to help me figure this out, but this just seems like one for Dropbox support, which could take a bit.

That is really weird behavior. I suspect if you got a live chat with them going you'd get to a reasonably competent tech pretty quickly. Good luck!

The troubleshooting ticket I created was answered by one of Dropbox support staff, but nothing new:

• disabling all Finder Extensions but Dropbox, then force-quitting and restarting the client (even if that was the "solution", why should Dropbox be the only app that gets to use its Finder Extension? I don't get that.)
• Force-quitting everything containing "Dropbox" from within Activity Monitor, then relaunching Finder

Still dead in the water...hoping for better troubleshooting instructions.

To see whether Dropbox is at all aware that it is running and has work to do, I changed the Sync settings on one folder in Dropbox preferences, and it now started to resync all 420k files from scratch again.

I’ve just about had it with Dropbox, thinking about how many times in the past 15 years I have been forced to waste valuable hours and days of my life with issues like these…so frustrating.

I wish I had more suggestions but I have to say the problem you are experiencing is not one I've seen, so I don't have anything to draw on. Let me make sure I'm understanding you, Dropbox is running — you can see it in, e.g., Activity Monitor — but it is non-functional: if you make a change to a file, it is not sync'd to your Dropbox folder and thence to your other computers. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Since I am dead in the water, I just reinstalled the Apple Silicon Beta 149.3.4541, and now I am getting the sync icons and context menu items in Finder.

Since Dropbox deleted all of my subfolders during a recent experiment, could you tell me the steps to resync all folders and subfolders, empty (Online-Only), again?

Right now it is saying that is resyncing all 420k files again, so maybe, just maybe, the subfolders will be back, at the end of this...if it's anything like the first time I tried this, a few days ago, it will take the better part of today.

I followed your original instructions with the latest Apple Silicon beta 149.3.4541, and so far so good...Dropbox icons are showing, as is the Dropbox context menu, and all folders are syncing in Offline-Only mode. Not sure what is different, this time around, but I am hopeful that this complete re-install from scratch might do the trick.

Syncing appears to have finished (of all the empty folders only, mind you), but just like the first time around that I tried this, it is hung up on “Syncing…”, but I have a feeling that this is a condition that we can figure out how to recover from, where the other situation of no icons and no context menu items was much more dire.