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I am trying to install the Dropbox client (3.0.4) on a new Windows 7 Professional installation, and it will not connect to the server. I get an endless "Connecting…" message, with a "Dropbox is starting" message.

The client has not been linked to an account. Other Dropbox clients on other computers in the network are working fine, and there is no proxy. The firewall and anti-virus software (Norton 360) have been disabled, with no effect. An exception to the firewall was added for Dropbox, with no effect. No other programs on the computer are having problems connecting to the network.

I try to go into the client and change the home directory of the client, but the changes will not save. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the client several times, from both the offline installer and from within my Dropbox account on their website.

Any experienced this? I'm out of ideas.

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    Try it again while logged in as a different user (to see if it's something about your specific user or not).
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jan 8, 2015 at 18:11
  • I know you said NAV was disabled, but are there exceptions made for Dropbox.exe on NAV? Also, it might help to delete the firewall entries for dropbox.exe on both NAV and Windows Firewall. Sometimes when the file hash of dropbox.exe is different than the last known file hash, it can cause communication issues.
    – Sun
    Jan 8, 2015 at 18:37

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Based on @Techie007's suggestion, I tested Dropbox by creating another user, and installing the client under that account. Everything worked as expected.

Here is evidently what happened:

When I installed Dropbox the first time, the client prompted me for my account details, and it linked correctly. At that point, it told me that what I had in my Dropbox account was too large for the default drive, and asked if I wanted 'Selective Sync' or 'Sync Everything'. I exited out of that prompt, and tried to set the Dropbox folder to a different drive via the client, and it evidently didn't like that.

When I later attempted to uninstall and reinstall, the client never prompted me for account details and presented with the issue described in the question. I deleted the program again, then went to C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming and deleted the Dropbox directory. After reinstalling, the client then prompted me for my account.

It again told me my default drive was too small. This time I selected 'Sync Everything' and then 'Advanced Settings' on the following install screen. From the 'Advanced Settings' menu on the install, I changed the default Dropbox directory.

Everything is working fine now.

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  • Nice! Glad you figured it out, and thanks for coming back and posting a decent answer for others. :)
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Jan 8, 2015 at 21:22
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I have found that this issue to be caused when DropBox couldn't connect to the Internet. It seems to happen when it loses Internet connection or tries to connect to a new WiFi network. After that event, even if Internet access is restored, DropBox will no longer connect.

I fixed this by turning off stealth-blocking ports on my firewall, after which DropBox was able to connect to the Internet again.

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