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

utpmg's avatar
utpmg
Helpful | Level 7
6 months ago

Dropbox Backup skipped some files on external drive, MacOS permissions?

I added an external drive to Dropbox Backup a couple of days ago; it was large and took about 16 hours. Seemed to have worked fine, but this morning I was comparing the backup files with my drive and saw some directories hadn't been copied. I never saw any error or alert, but am suspecting it was a permissions issue. These directories are over 15 years old. But I can not find anywhere what the permissions are supposed to be for Dropbox Backup to properly copy these. I changed one to 750 but it still doesn't seem to get picked up in subsequent backups.

Is this a file permissions issue?

Dropbox Backup
Permissions
  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    6 months ago

    Did you also try removing the external drive and re-plugging it in your computer utpmg? 

    • utpmg's avatar
      utpmg
      Helpful | Level 7
      6 months ago

      Yes, I've done that once, maybe twice.

      • Walter's avatar
        Walter
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        6 months ago

        Thanks for the update utpmg 

         

        Could you try renaming the files and/or re-uploading them to your external drive and let me know if you notice the same behavior?

  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    6 months ago

    Hey utpmg - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

     

    Do the folders that were skipped contain any special characters of the ones mentioned here?

     

    Are you able to manually upload them to your account as a temporary solution?

     

    Also, what is the Dropbox desktop app's exact status and version as shown in your menu bar? 

     

    Let us know what you find and we'll take it from there.

    • utpmg's avatar
      utpmg
      Helpful | Level 7
      6 months ago

      no, two skipped folders are named 2003_08_01r and 198603_05; the one successfully backed up is named 198609_01. And all of those folders (and their files within)  are shown as "checked" when I look at the "Choose folders" option in "Manage backup." 

      Dropbox status is version 200.4.7134 Up to date

      MacOS Sonoma 

      Version 14.5 (23F79)

      These are currently redundant copies as I only now added this external SSD to the backup so I don't need another copy yet.

      I will point out again that the creation dates on those two directories are 2006 and 2008 and their file/folder permissions don't match the others.

      Machine has been rebooted a few times since I noticed this.

      thanks

About Security and Permissions

Start a discussion in the Dropbox Community forum to get help with your account security and permissions. Find support from Community members.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!