Dropbox failing to update?

Question

I have two PC's at home. One XP the other Windows 7-64bit. I have a word document that I edit on either PC - to enable this I have the file stored in a Dropbox folder. This usually works fine - but sometimes I find that the file does not get updated on my windows7 PC. I.e. I edit the file on my Windows XP machine, then go to my Windows 7 PC and see that there is a previous, old, datestamp on the file and sure enough if I open up the file to have a look, I see that the latest edits are not included. If I right-click on the file and select "Browse on Dropbox website" I see that the latest file is correctly there. Surely there must be some option to say please update this file - but can find no such thing. Has something gone wrong?

I should point out that my wireless internet connection is a little intermittent - could this have caused some glitch?

By the way I do not leave the old file open in word on my Windows-7 PC as I can well imagine that would cause trouble.

Also I should mention that the icon on the document has the little green tick on it showing that Dropbox is not in the process of doing a transfer. Also the Dropbox icon in my system tray also has the green tick - so Dropbox is not busy transferring some other file(s). If I hover the mouse over the Dropbox icon I get the tooltip "All files up to date".

Solution

@Randolph West is correct in the install version of Dropbox, and you may have to update the software to reduce software errors.

When you detail that Dropbox states that all files are up to date (when in fact they are not up to date), your system (either through firewall or through a virus scanner) may be blocking specific ports. Also, if you are accessing the internet through a router, the router may be blocking the specific port that is required by Dropbox. It would be prudent to re-submit a question detailing port-blocking and Dropbox, with a link to this initial question.

Since you describe that your internet connection is intermittent, it may also be prudent to check whether or not you have maxed out your monthly data allotment with your internet service provider (ISP).

As @Randolph West stated, it may be beneficial to install the most recent version of Dropbox. However, I would add the following suggestion: after installing a new dropbox client, AND if the dataset that is syncing with Dropbox is not large (less than 4GB), I would copy all Dropbox contents (subfolders, files, everything) to a thumb drive from the computer with more current files. When on your other computer, disconnect the internet connection, and replace all the files on that computer's Dropbox with all the files on your thumbdrive. When the transfer is complete, re-establish the internet connection.

This will make Dropbox do a low-overhead hash-check instead of transferring all the files to/from Dropbox servers. If no changes happened between the time you put data from computer A on your USB stick, and transferred files to computer B, Dropbox should see if the local data is current.

If this problem continues to persist, I would suggest that you visit the Dropbox support forum, and link to this question on superuser.

Comments

[Admin]

Do you have the latest version of DropBox installed? There was a bump from 0.7 to 1.2 recently which I had to upgrade manually. That could be the reason (though I am guessing).

[Mick]

I read that dropbox will upgrade itself in due course - maybe this problem will not happen again - we'll see.

[Admin]

You may have read that, but my experience is different in that I had to manually upgrade it.

[gronostaj]

A workaround may be to right-click Dropbox icon and click Pause syncing, then resume it the same way. Dropbox will reindex files on resume and maybe will download the most recet version.