Dropbox Update (Dropbox for macOS)

[John Bayle]

Great! Thanks again Gregg!! Back from lunch and checked the "problem" family and everybody is now where they are supposed to be. :-)

[John Bayle]

OK, Thanks Gregg for the quick reply! :-) I did that. Got a big red message that said "This File is not being shared". But that's kinda what I expect from what you wrote above. I'm going to go have lunch with some friends and then see how things are when I get back in an hour or so. That should give all the synching activities time for a new file to be downloaded.

[Gregg]

So, it sounds like everything is good in Reunion on your Mac and there are some linking issues in ReunionTouch on your iPad.

If that's the case, try resetting sharing in Reunion.

To do this, open your family file in Reunion on your Mac and choose File > Sharing Status from Reunion's main menubar and then click "Reset Sharing."

After a few minutes a new copy of your family file will be downloaded to the iPad.

[John Bayle]

Well, I've run into a problem with this so-called update from the good folks at Dropbox. I just did the update. I too was reluctant as were many folks who've posted here. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! I am running macOS Ventura 13.1 on a nearly 2 year old iMac. I've had no problems since updating to Ventura. Today, I "upgraded" the dropbox on the iMac. And then I got out my iPad which is running iPadOS 16.3.1 which I believe is the latest version of iPadOS. Then I started up ReunionTouch which is 1.0.18. Upon opening my "main" file, there was a brief "flash" about synching files and then it managed to synch the files. Great! I checked the number of people in the file, and that was the same on both the iMac and the iPad. More good news. Then I went to some folks that I'd recently added, and they were not there! Huh??? Further checking showed that they are in the iPad file, they were just not linked into the family they are supposed to be linked into. In fact none of these people whom I'd linked into this family (about 5 children) were linked to their parents in the iPad file. People who have been linked into families previously (those that I've checked anyway) seem to all be properly linked in the iPad file. So I tried to link the "unlinked ones" into the proper family. That did not work! This is the first time I've had a similar issue with synching between iPad and iMac.

[Bob White]

As the old saying sez, "there ain't any free lunches!" I pay the 10 dollars a month to Apple for the two terabytes of storage. I consider it well worth the price of knowing that my thousand of files, thousands of photos, several thousand tunes, etc, etc... are safely, in multiple, backed up in a highly automated backup scheme.

I only use the free version of Dropbox and only continue to use Dropbox because of Reunion. Quality-wise, I fully doubt there is any significant difference in Dropbox storage vs. Apple iCloud storage. However, Dropbox is not part of the Apple ecosystem and doesn't do many backup functions automatically --- and that is where iCloud storage saves me lots of time and worry. If Leister switched over to using iCloud, I would very quickly become a past customer of Dropbox.

[bigfoot4]

cbarrick If Reunion switched from dropbox to iCloud, it might force a lot of users to buy up extra iCloud space. Currently I keep all multimedia items (a copy of pictures etc) in dropbox. Currently using over 13GB for free which most of time works ok, sometimes it gets slow, but I do not have high speed internet, I have satellite internet by Viasat. If Reunion files were in iCloud, I'd have to upgrade to iCloud+, 50GB: $0.99 + tax a month in USA.
I am skeptical that Apple iCloud is any better than dropbox unless someone has compared them.

[cbarrick]

No. Changing the location of your Reunion family file does not break anything.

However, your family file links to media files on your system and Reunion goes to great lengths to not lose track of these media files as they're moved around and renamed on your system. If you're only relocating your family file, there's nothing to be concerned about. If you're moving media items you might want to run a Multimedia Usage Report from time to time to make sure Reunion has not lost the locations of your media items.

The biggest problem we've been seeing with recent upgrades to Dropbox is family files being designated as "Online only."

As for iCloud - it's come a long way and we've certainly not ruled it out.

For what it's worth, I am only keeping my Dropbox account because of Reunion. And with that, using Dropbox is becoming more of a hassle for MacOS devices (although less so for iOS/iPadOS devices).

All the other apps I use that previously required Dropbox to store files have moved to either allowing or requiring iCloud for cloud storage. It would be great to see Reunion move away from Dropbox and to iCloud (especially since we are obviously all Mac users).

[Paul Reitz]

Gregg wrote:

No. Changing the location of your Reunion family file does not break anything.

However, your family file links to media files on your system and Reunion goes to great lengths to not lose track of these media files as they're moved around and renamed on your system.

Thanks for the clear answer. The multimedia files are staying put, but I'll do as you suggest since it's been a while. The toughest part is trying to determine what file has replaced ones shown as in the trash.

The biggest problem we've been seeing with recent upgrades to Dropbox is family files being designated as "Online only."/

I can only image how slow that must make things.

[Gregg]

...will the relocation of Dropbox break anything related to keeping Reunion files in it...

No. Changing the location of your Reunion family file does not break anything.

However, your family file links to media files on your system and Reunion goes to great lengths to not lose track of these media files as they're moved around and renamed on your system. If you're only relocating your family file, there's nothing to be concerned about. If you're moving media items you might want to run a Multimedia Usage Report from time to time to make sure Reunion has not lost the locations of your media items.

The biggest problem we've been seeing with recent upgrades to Dropbox is family files being designated as "Online only."

As for iCloud - it's come a long way and we've certainly not ruled it out.

[Bob White]

..........Bob - you said you wanted "to see if there are any grenades to worry about." What a wonderful way to express it!! .......

Actually, grenades is not the word I meant to use. I actually meant to say "land mines"!! But either one works to express the idea.

[Paul Reitz]

Gregg, will the relocation of Dropbox break anything related to keeping Reunion files in it?
I have several tens of GB of multimedia docs in iCloud storage, kept also on my computers for speed. It has been working well. Do Apple's OS reconfigurations prompt Leister to reconsider using iCloud for Reunion itself?

Bob - you said you wanted "to see if there are any grenades to worry about." What a wonderful way to express it!!
Search as I might trying to learn what Monterey would break, I couldn't find a thing! It seems virtually impossible to learn about the potential downsides of an update until just after you do it! Grenades... !

[SGilbert]

Ah Ha! That did it!

[Bob White]

See instructions on this screenshot. Likely that the box is unchecked.

ShowLibrary.png

[SGilbert]

Bob, I do not know who, or what, hid my Users Library, but without unhiding the invisible, it is gone. I am using a MBP with M1 Pro with OS 13.0.1. See below.

[Bob White]

Maybe my theory that the folder was created on the fly due to the Dropbox movement is on the money. Here's what I see without having done the Dropbox update.

CleanShot 2022-12-05 at 12.03.12@2x.png