The archive
Issues Database
Every documented issue, searchable and filterable by category, year, and keyword. Toggle between grid and timeline views, and export the filtered set to CSV.
Dropbox told Linux users that from November 2018 its client would sync only on unencrypted ext4, abruptly stripping support for XFS, Btrfs, ZFS, and encrypted setups — communicated as a terse desktop notification with little explanation.
Linux users found Dropbox's system-tray icon — their primary way to see sync status and open the menu — broken or missing as desktops moved away from legacy tray icons toward AppIndicator, leaving Dropbox's status menu unreliable across popular distributions.
Dropbox demoed 'Project Infinite' in 2016 as a way to see all cloud files on the desktop without using disk space, then shipped it in January 2017 rebranded as 'Smart Sync' — but restricted it to paying Business and Professional tiers rather than the free product its demo had implied.
Dropbox converted the long-standing Public folder into an ordinary private folder and then disabled all of its public links on 1 September 2017, breaking countless URLs people had embedded across the web with no automatic migration.
Dropbox's Smart Sync feature, meant to keep files 'online-only' to free local disk space, has repeatedly failed in the opposite direction — quietly re-downloading online-only files and filling up users' drives, or reverting their carefully chosen local/online states.
Dropbox deprecated its original API v1 in 2016 and shut it off on 28 September 2017, forcing every third-party developer to rewrite for the incompatible v2 or watch their Dropbox integration stop working.
In January 2017 files and folders that users had deleted — in some cases as far back as 2009 — suddenly reappeared in their accounts, revealing that 'deleted' data had been retained on Dropbox's servers far longer than its own policy promised.
2016: Dropbox force-resets passwords as the 2012 breach finally surfaces
Four years after the 2012 breach, the stolen credentials surfaced in the wild, forcing Dropbox to reset the passwords of all users who had not changed them since mid-2012.
Before Dropbox acquired HelloSign in 2019, a patent-assertion entity called Digital Verification Systems had sued HelloSign over an electronic-signature patent — one of a wave of near-identical suits — leaving Dropbox to inherit the dispute along with the company.
Dropbox launched Carousel as a dedicated photo-and-video gallery app in 2014, then announced its closure barely 18 months later, shutting it down on 31 March 2016.
A persistent class of complaints describes Dropbox files that sit indefinitely in a 'syncing' state and never finish, leaving users unsure whether their data was actually uploaded — in some reported cases for months, with support unable to resolve it.
Synchronoss v. Dropbox: a patent infringement suit defeated on software-versus-hardware grounds
Synchronoss Technologies accused Dropbox of infringing three data-synchronization patents; Dropbox won summary judgment of non-infringement and invalidity in 2019, and the Federal Circuit affirmed in 2021.