Disabling auto-update on the Dropbox Windows application?

[bunnywarren]

I find that the Dropbox updater will run randomly whilst I'm using the PC and this causes so much activity with the hard drive that the system is almost unusable until it completes. Since this takes several minutes it is such an inconvenience I have to disable the Dropbox application except when I want to explicitly synchronise files.

Is there a way to disable auto-update on the Dropbox Windows application or set it to run at a particular time? This "run whenever it feels like" is very backwards and not something I see in any other application, which either ask to update or allow defined times to do so.

I've seen a couple of other threads on this from 2015 so (hopefully) this has been addressed in the 6-7 years since it was raised.

[Rich]

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@bunnywarren wrote:

Is there a way to disable auto-update on the Dropbox Windows application or set it to run at a particular time?

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No, there isn't. Dropbox will push updates as necessary. There's no way to control when they occur.

[Dibbs]

The auto-update crashes my Dropbox because it overloads the ap.  

Whenever my Dropbox is crashing and I go to the Task Manager - it is always because it's trying to update at the same time.  The only way to fix is to uninstall Dropbox and reinstall the latest version - which is not an autoupdate anyway!!!  Please let me know how to delete the autoupdate part from the Dropbox program folders, so that my ap. stops crashing. 

it is a massive problem. 

[Megan]

Hi @Dibbs, let's look into this! 

There's no way to prevent the app from automatically updating, however let's check why the crash might be happening. 

How many files do you have synced locally to your device? Also, which version of the app do you have installed? 

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there.

[Dibbs]

Hi there, 

According to my currently syncing/crashing Dropbox, I have 3,069,000 files currently trying to sync.  This is because every time I have to uninstall and reinstall Dropbox (which is pretty much Dropbox's recommended solution for everything), I have to try and remember exactly what subfolders i have synced out of a massive online data collection.  I never get it exactly right, and I usually start again with the bare minimum smart-synced to the computer, but it will have to catalogue the whole thing again to figure out what I want on the desktop and what I don't. 

I have had Dropbox paused for the last 17 hrs approximately, because another forum had an issue marked a 'solved' if you pause Dropbox while it's doing a massive 'indexing' operation.  That trick seemed to work for me on my home computer the other day, but has not worked in this instance. 

Please let me know if you have any ideas.  When Dropbox works, it works really well, but when it does this regularly, the amount of work days lost add up to a LOT!

[Hannah]

Hey @Dibbs, thanks for the nudge here and sorry to see you're having trouble with this.

Have you tried using selective sync, to reduce the number of folders, and see if that helps speed up syncing for you?

3 million files is way above the 300k (soft) limit that the Dropbox app can handle, so reducing the number of files in your Dropbox folder, should help.

[Dibbs]

Hi @Hannah 

Sadly 3M files IS me being VERY selective about what I keep Smart-synced.  I am attempting to reduce it even further, but the Dropbox ap. can't get far enough through re-indexing and figuring itself out after re-installing to even get there.  It's just repeatedly crashing.  

I've once again tried the pause sync trick to give it a bit of time to get the indexing done, but no improvement.  As soon as I unpause it crashes the ap. and requires me to press the "Restart Dropbox" button.  

Thanks, 

Dibbs

[Megan]

Hi @Dibbs, does the app give you an error when it crashes, or is it a silent crash? 

[Dibbs]

Hi @Megan , 

Dropbox lets me know that "it has unexpectedly quit".  And lets me either restart Dropbox or Close Dropbox. 

It's now crashing on my home computer as well as work computer, despite having just reinstalled Dropbox and resynced all the files (the ones I selected for syncing) just recently. 

Dibbs

[Hannah]

Thanks for the update, Dibbs.

I'll have to insist that the culprit is the number of files in the Dropbox folder. 

I wonder if moving some files out of the Dropbox folder, would help, if you're willing to try.

You can move them out, apply the selective sync settings to reduce the number of files and then add them back in.