rclone copy appears to have the effect of deleting almost all of my dropbox. Yikes.

After boughtonp's helpful pointer to rcopy I've been trying to get to grips with it & particularly why it deletes all existing files in the dropbox before copying. The web-copy function actually does the same, but the whole point of rcopy was to avoid that. Finally, a month afterwards, I've both found out why & how to fix it.

tl:dr: use --dropbox-batch-mode sync

After stargate's link for Ralph Minderhoud's blog I switched to try rclone sync but got the following error during uplift:

The reference for that is in rclone.org/dropbox/:

The info on the page appears to be misleading:-

• It never mentions that all the existing files are first deleted and thus *all* files in the mirror have to be re-uplifted

• --dropbox-batch-mode off was the default before rclone v1.55
  (mine is rclone v1.60.1-DEV)

Well, whatever. I took another chance, and the following actually works, and only uplifts changed files:
(the following need to be set before (see also rclone sync commands):
$LOCAL_DIR
$DROPBOX_PROFILE # this is the dropbox name within the local dropbox profile
$REMOTE_DIR
$LOCAL_EXCLUDE_TXT_FILE):

$ rclone sync $LOCAL_DIR $DROPBOX_PROFILE:$REMOTE_DIR -P \
  --exclude-from $LOCAL_EXCLUDE_TXT_FILE --dropbox-batch-mode sync

I used this just now and, instead of replacing every single one of the 3,433 files it just added 4 new documents.

Here is $LOCAL_EXCLUDE_TXT_FILE:

ttps://www.ralphminderhoud.com/blog/rclone-two-way-dropbox-sync/

I've installed and have been making intensive efforts to get to grips. It describes itself as "equivalent to rsync" and is supposed to be native for Dropbox (and many other similar).

I've hit a huge issue: rclone copy appears to have the effect of deleting almost all of my dropbox. Yikes.

I cannot show the live results since I do not want to delete most of my Dropbox again. However, here is the size of the current files. After the second command (which I stopped after a little while) there were less than 1,000 files left. I'm uncertain of the reason why. I had to fix by re-uploading via a browser page, and that means a complete 1.5GB upload.

(In the code that follows I have replaced the actual remote Dropbox + remote path + local dir with generic names; -P==show Progress; the filter file is to NOT upload certain files)

$ rclone size remote:path --tpslimit 12 --tpslimit-burst 0
Total objects: 3.401k (3401)
Total size: 1.468 GiB (1576509174 Byte)
$ rclone copy local-dir remote:path -P --filter-from filter-file.txt

I'm not going to be able to use rclone. I assume that it is something that I'm doing wrong, but my Hearings will be soon now & I cannot afford to suddenly lose all of the content of every Dropbox. In addition, I do not have the time to report the error, nor research the reason.

Added Fri 19:
This morning I spotted a tit (small bird, not certain of specie) jumping around the branches of the large Cherry tree outside my bedroom window. Yesterday my near neighbour informed me that he had spotted blackbirds eating apples fallen onto a garden shed not visible from my windows. So, the future for the acre + birdsong looks more hopeful than I had previously thought.

Those birds all manage to fly across the Channel, so I guess that they should be tough enough to survive a few cold nights.

Or check out rclone which is in the repo, supports DropBox and can do equivalent to rsync.

However, asking a question isn't (shouldn't be) rocking a boat, especially if you're new to a process - being new to something is exactly when people are more likely to ask questions.

-
Apparently bird bath heaters are a thing. No idea how effective they might be, but might be worth checking out if you've got an outdoor power source.

DropBox almost certainly still has a browser-based interface

You are correct. It does & that means that I can sync a dir quite easily by dropping it into the DB page. It then re-uploads the entire dir (2GB; even if only one file - or none - have been changed). Coming across the debian app for desktop was part of my search to avoid that.

It is my first time using a remote hearing for any purpose and my instinct is to rock their boat as little as possible. I've invested ridiculously large amounts of my time in instigating this case and will run along their train-tracks, thanks.

You will be indifferent to know that I got the suet/fat balls up for the birds last night and, so far, they have ignored it. It was so cold last night that they may all be dead again (in 2018 the Beast From the East killed every song-bird in the acre behind my house; only magpies & pidgeons survived; it is only in the last 2 years that some have visited again).

Have you tried asking the court if non-proprietary alternatives can be used - yeah, they may say no, but you'll never know if you don't ask. (And similarly, they might never learn why it matters if nobody ever raises the subject.)

In any case, DropBox almost certainly still has a browser-based interface, removing the need to install anything.

Convince who?
The court?
Surely you jest ...

I expect that AK will be lucky if he gets a proper hearing.

Best,

A.

The Court expects participants to use Dropbox

If you are supporting values of free and open-source software than convince him not to use a proprietary software. If you are not, why not to use a snoop-phone for running that app?

It's not a question of whose time is more valuable. The Court expects participants to use Dropbox - my first use, and not my decision. I thought that it may also be useful for others if Devuan becomes an option in addition to Debian & Ubuntu. I would love to get involved, and also in lots of other things as well. I just cannot, so put it out there. It's not a demand. It is a request (oh! horror!).

Sorry if my request that someone else consider connecting with DropBox & asking that they consider Devuan as another OS to align their Apps to was so outrageous.

More amusing than outrageous IMO. Nobody is going to contact commercial software vendors for you, least of all Devuan developers, maintainers or forum admins.
Frankly I doubt anyone cares very much at all, since there are supported FOSS alternatives already in the repos.

Devuan "supports" software that devuan packages. If you want to install some random proprietary package you downloaded from the 'net, deciding whether it's "safe" or not is your gig and nobody else's.

Posts along the lines of "Can someone do $thing for me, I don't have time" don't tend to win many friends in FOSS circles unless you are otherwise productively contributing to a project, and you run a real risk of coming across as "My time is more valuable than yours".

@emanym: many thanks for taking a quick look.

I've got *very* little time available to me: Having got my head up inside of a CPV webpage (for remote hearings) & installing my very first webcam I'm trying to finish off a huge set of commentaries on dodgy ASV CCTV, whilst simultaneously setting up suet & fat-ball feeders to try to help local songbird migrants survive forthcoming -14℃ weather.

Sorry if my request that someone else consider connecting with DropBox & asking that they consider Devuan as another OS to align their Apps to was so outrageous.

Why don't you setup an isolated VM and check it out yourself?

Alternatively -- and somewhat faster -- you can download the .deb package, unpack with:

dpkg-deb -x dropbox_2023.09.06_amd64.deb dirname

and see what's inside.

Unfortunately, it's just a python installer script and some library.

You could still use/modify that to download (not install or run) & poke around in whatever it downloads , but I'm not that curious...

Why don't you setup an isolated VM and check it out yourself?

Or even better, use something non-proprietary like Nextcloud that is already supported.

https://www.dropbox.com/install