Score:1

Dropbox error: "Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy"

cn flag

So I've installed dropbox via this guide, but every time I run ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd, I get the following error:

Unable to monitor entire Dropbox folder hierarchy. Please run "echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=100000 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf; sudo sysctl -p" and restart Dropbox to fix the problem.

I have run the command it asks me to, but this error still pops up. I've searched and found this answer, which explains what's going on.

I have changed the fs.inotify.max_user_watches to 1000000 (1 million) as well, but that doesn't seem to work either. What could be going on here?

Esther avatar
es flag
how many folders are in your Dropbox?
Esther avatar
es flag
even better explanation from stackoverflow, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35711897/dropbox-fs-inotify-error . Check if max_user_watches actually got updated to 1 million, and if your dropbox is huge then you may need to increase max_user_watches more.
JRCSalter avatar
cn flag
@Esther so that answer essentially did what I've already done. The only thing I didn't do was check if it got updated. Currently when I run `sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches` I get `fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 100000` so it hasn't updated. I'm not sure where to go from here.
JRCSalter avatar
cn flag
@Esther Also there are 320,262 items, totalling 529.9 GB (some contents unreadable) in my Dropbox folder.
Esther avatar
es flag
did you try putting it in a file in /etc/sysctl.d instead of /etc/sysctl.conf ? The linked answer says that /etc/sysctl.conf is deprecated and newer systemd won't load it. Possibly the Dropbox program is also old and the message hasn't been updated?
uz flag
Jos
You may want to check your Dropbox folder for circular links.
JRCSalter avatar
cn flag
@Esther I didn't, as that appeared to be referring to Arch, so I ignored it. I did try it, and now it seems to be working. At least it's working without errors now. Taking a long time to index all the files though, but that's it's own problem.
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