Dropbox filesystem fix for Linux

In 2018, Dropbox dropped support for several Linux filesystems; its client refuses to sync if an unsupported filesystem is encountered: link.

In July 2019, the decision was partially rolled back, allowing syncing from zfs (on 64-bit systems only), eCryptFS, xfs (on 64-bit systems only), and btrfs filesystems: link. Other filesystems dropped by the initial change are, however, still unsupported.

This project fixes the filesystem detection in the Linux client to restore the sync capability for all Linux filesystems.

The fix has been tested against the official Dropbox Linux client up to, and including, version x86_64-89.4.278.

Maintenance mode

Please note: I have stopped using the official Dropbox Linux client, so this project is in maintenance mode, and it will not receive any more patches from me. I may not be able to help you debug new breakages, nor test any changes.

If you think something is broken and you have a fix, please open a pull request with an explanation, and if it looks reasonable I will merge it. If you have a question, feel free to open an issue; either I or somebody else watching the repo might be able to help, but no promises.

If you are curious, I started using the open-source client at https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral-dropbox instead, that is a better alternative for me, as it does not require this fix and it's more command-line friendly. You should give it a try. 🙂

History

The initial version of this repo was based on code posted by one user of the forums (link, link to gist), but I extended and added extra detection steps since.

Installation

This is an experimental fix, not supported by Dropbox. It might cause data loss.

You assume your own responsibility to configure, build and use this code. If you do not feel comfortable with researching and running those steps yourself, or dealing with any problem you might encounter, please do not use this fix.

Pages linking here

• https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/11/how-to-use-dropbox-on-non-ext4.html (contains a detailed set of instructions to install this code on .deb-based Linux distributions)

• https://www.maketecheasier.com/use-dropbox-non-ext4-linux-filesystem/ (contains a few extra tips to install dependencies in .rpm-based Linux distributions)

• https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dropbox-fix2 (a user-contributed package for Arch Linux in the AUR)