Dropbox for R6 (x86 only)

btaroli wrote:
So I figured I'd start fresh, since previously I had no guide for what to expect when starting this thing. So I yanked out all Dropbox references from my user home dir, returned /etc/default/dropbox to it's virgin null status, and rebooted the NAS (no amount of killing was going to get rid of the original zombie/defunct process).

But you didn't remove the add-on and didn't make any changes/deleted the Dropbox references that were installed in your primary storage location (presumably /data)?

btaroli wrote:
I should point out that trying to apply either the newer stable or testing builds results in an error. No logging on that either?

Would have been nice to see the actual error message. But no, no logging on that either ;) But to give you a better understanding let me try to explain what is happening and also why I can't fix this.

On initial install, Dropbox Manager wil try to download the Dropbox binaries from the generic "stable" link provided by Dropbox, e.g. from here https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64
As you can see this is an unversioned link and it *should* point to the latest stable release. Unfortunately Dropbox isn't very good at keeping these links current, that's why in most of the cases Dropbox Manager will install a version that is older than the one Dropbox Manager later on reports as being the current "stable" version.

Now, how does Dropbox Manager determine the current stable and testing versions? By looking at the official Dropbox RSS feed which basically offers the same information as their Release Notes page. To access these relelases directly, you need to use a special URL which I currently can't tell you for I'm at work and have no access to my dev environment at home. Anyway, as is the case with the stable releases Dropbox also is a bit slow when putting newer releases into the "direct download directory". So what happened in your case most likely is that while 2.6.31 was announced on the releases page as well as the RSS feed there wasn't any real downloadable version available in the direct downloads directory.

Since the actual installation of newer versions is done using a bash script it is very hard to find out why exactly the download failed (which is the main reason why it would fail at all). Other reasons for a failed download may of course be:
- wrong or no DNS settings
- no active internet connection
- full /tmp directory on your NAS
- (whole hell of other reasons)

But yes, trying to do better error detection and maybe providing more elaborate feedback to the user is on my todo list.

btaroli wrote:
Having cleared the config, starting the daemon for my user required linking again. No biggie. Once done the display changed to what I had previously seen. First it retrieved the file list and then began counting down as it syncs. I've just checked again and it says retrieving file list again. Odd but I'll check it again in a few mins before posting this.

What you're seeing is what Dropbox writes into it's messaging socket. Of course Dropbox will check (and thus download) the file list on a regular basis since that's how it determines whether there have been some changes to it's master source. So chances are that if you just hit "refresh" often enough, you'll see the message appear and disappear again.

btaroli wrote:
Well, that's a little scary. I tried incrementally syncing a file to see how the daemon behaved.

What exactly do you mean by "incrementally syncing"?

btaroli wrote:
Other than seeing a small tick in it's CPU as I refreshed the settings page, nothing. So I went looking at the synced folders in my user homedir. All the /folders/ are there, and have appropriate user and group ownerships, and perms. BUT none of the files are there.

Well, I've got Dropbox Manager running on five different ReadyNAS systems, linked to different Dropbox accounts, some running "stand-alone", some in parallel and all are running perfectly. If they hadn't, I wouldn't have released the app. So I currently have no idea what may have gone wrong with your installation except maybe an improper "manual cleanup" that left some older configs on the system. In any case, if the folders are there, sync should automatically run over the LAN link and the files should appear. Depending on the size of your Dropbox you should be able to at least monitor the progress of an initial sync by refreshing the status page after linking a Dropbox.

Which reminds me: what version of the Dropbox Manager app are you using? Not that it would matter much for the core functionality hasn't changed. I just want to make sure we're talking about the same version here. But in the end I think I'll need to have a look at your system to see what is going on there.

-Stefan