Box Drive provides user notifications if there are any issues saving your changes to Box. The Box Drive application interface lists the file and provides a brief description of the issue.
To find a list of any problem file notifications:
- Click the Box icon in your menu bar or system tray to open the Box Drive Search Bar.
- Click the Gear icon (lower right corner for Mac, lower left corner for Windows) for more options, then click Error updating an item...
- All problem file notifications will be listed here. They should disappear automatically once you have resolved the issue. If they do not, and you believe you have already resolved the issue, you can click Retry All to manually retry your actions.
Check the list below for the problem file notification type you've received. If an Error Code is included in the problem file notification, use that code to identify the error. Click the link for more information. You can also search this article (using the Find tool in your browser) for the Title or Error Code (when applicable) of the notification you received:
Action Failed: Administrator Restricted
Your enterprise administrator has restricted moving and copying files to these locations. Request access from your admin and try again.
Action Failed: File Cannot Be Downloaded
If you do not have permissions to download a file from Box, you will not be able to download the file in Box Drive. You may also see this error if a download has failed for an unknown reason.
Check your permissions on the item and reattempt the download. If you have marked a folder for offline access that you don't have download permissions in, make the folder online only again to clear the problem items.
Download Failed: Insufficient Free Disk Space
If you have attempted to download a file that exceeds your Hard Drive capacity, you will be unable to complete the file download. This includes offline downloads.
Clear up HD space and retry your problems items to complete the downloads. To clear up space, you can mark offline folders as online only. You can also log out of Box Drive to completely clear all cached files and logs, including your offline files and your preferences of which folders were available for offline use.
Action Failed: File Download Restricted
If a collaborator has locked a file on Box and prevented downloads, you will not be able to download the file until it is unlocked.
Unlock the file on Box and contact the collaborator who locked the file if necessary. Once this file is unlocked, try your action again.
Download Failed: Malicious Content Detected
Malicious files cannot be downloaded, but you can view the file on Box.com. To view the file on Box.com, right-click on the file in Box Drive and select the option to View on Box.com.
Copy Failed: Malicious Content Detected
We detected that the file you attempted to copy is a malicious file. Copying a malicious file to another location in Box is not allowed.
Move Failed: Malicious Content Detected
We have detected that the file you attempted to move is a malicious file. File moves are not allowed for malicious files. When file moves fail, we attempt to move the file back to its original location. In this case, the move back to the original location failed because the file is still open. Please close the file in order to move the file back to its original location.
Copy Failed: Classified Content Detected
We detected that the file you attempted to copy is classified file. Copying a classified file to another location in Box is not allowed.
Action Failed: File Is Locked on Box
If a collaborator has locked a file on Box, you will not be able to update the file until it is unlocked.
Locate the file on Box, right-click and select Unlock File. Before the file is unlocked, you can view the name of the person who locked the file. Contact this person to coordinate your changes. Once this file is unlocked, try your action again.
Action Failed: File May Be Locked or in Use
The file you are trying to take action on has been locked by the local machine.
The file might be in use by another application, or the computer administrator may have to unlock the file before you can access it. Close all other apps and restart Box Drive, then try again.
Action Failed: File Size Exceeded
The maximum file size limit for uploads to Box varies depending on the file owner’s account type. For file size limits, see What's the maximum file size I can upload?
If you are unable to save a file to Box because of the inherited file size limits, be sure to alert the file owner.
Action Failed: File Was Deleted on Box
You see this message in the following situations:
- When the file is edited offline and you try to delete the item on Box. You see this error message when Box Drive restarts.
- When the file is deleted on Box and you try to edit the item locally. You see this error message as soon as the conflict is detected.
To ensure your changes are saved, make a copy of the file on your desktop and delete the original. Then move the newly created copy into your Box folder. Alternately, upload the file via the Web App to some other location and delete the original.
Action Failed: Network Error
File transfer problems typically occur due to intermittent network issues. These problems can occur anywhere in the network and may be outside your control.
Depending on the type of network issue, you may need to contact your administrator, IT department, or wireless/internet provider to resolve the issue. Once the network issue is resolved, retry the upload/download.
Action Failed: Quota Exceeded
Box Drive's functionality is dependent on the quota eligibility of the folder owner. The maximum file size limit for this account is based on the folder owner’s account type. See https://www.box.com/pricing/ for eligibility information.
If you are unable to save a file to Box because of the inherited file quota limits, alert the folder owner.
Action Failed: Service Is Busy
This issue can occur if Box Drive is generating too much traffic to the Box server.
Typically, the notification will report that the file will be automatically retried after after a few minutes. If the notification does not report this, or if the retry fails for some reason, try again manually in a few minutes.
Action Failed: Unable to Create Temp Folder
If your account does not have permission to access this location, then Box Drive cannot create a temp folder and issues this problem notification.
For Box Drive to create a temp folder, you must have permission to create folders at the parent level of the Box folder (For example, at the X:\Stuff level in the example above). If you do not have the required permission to create folders, contact your system administrator. Once you have the required permission to create a folder, restart Box Drive.
Action Failed: Unexpected Error
Sometimes, we are unable to determine the cause of the problem. In this case, the best solution is to restart Box Drive. If restarting Box Drive does not solve this problem, then you may need to restart your computer.
Action Failed: Unsupported File Type
Box Drive does not support the following file types (see Which File Types are Ignored and Which are Blocked? for detailed information):
- Outlook PST files
- QuickBook files
- Google Docs/Spreadsheets (web only documents cannot save to your local machine)
- Mac Package Files
Upload these types of files using the Box web application.
Action Failed: Unsupported Name
Some operating systems do not support item names containing some special characters. If you attempt to save files or folders names containing these characters, Box Drive prompts you to rename the item using the underscore character.
- Box OS-independent restrictions: Box does not support '/' and '\' anywhere in a file or folder name or whitespaces at the beginning or end of a file or folder name.
- Windows OS restrictions:
- < (less than)
- > (greater than)
- : (colon)
- " (double quote)
- / (forward slash)
- \ (backslash)
- | (vertical bar or pipe)
- ? (question mark)
- * (asterisk)
- If Windows does not support certain characters in file names, Box marks them as problem files. See the list of Windows file name restrictions. Windows file name restrictions also shown below:
- Windows does not support folder names that end with a . (period) character.
- Mac OS restrictions:
- Box does not support opening spaces.
- Box does not recognize Mac’s character conversion in file names (for example, Mac changes any occurrence of / to : in file names).
- If Mac does not support certain characters in file names, Box marks them as problem files. Contact Apple support for recommendations on renaming files, folders, or disks.
If the item on Box has an unsupported name, rename the item on Box and Box Drive will re-process the download. If the local file has an unsupported name, rename the file locally.
Unable to Open File
Online Only files cannot be opened while you are offline. Return online and retry the file download.
Cannot Delete Folder With Un-synced Files
The folder cannot be deleted as it contains files that have not been saved to Box. These files must be moved out of this folder in your local Box Drive folder before you can delete it.
Collaborated Folder Could Not Be Moved
Box Drive does not allow folder moves if the folder owner has changed on Box. For example, if you try to move a collaborated folder into your root directory, you will be converting the folder ownership to be private.
To resolve the error notification, move the folder back to it's original location in your local computer. Next, on the Box web site, try to move the folder to the required location.
Dependency Failure: Issue With Another Item
This issue may occur when Box Drive is unable to execute a particular action because it depends on another action that has failed. For example, Box Drive is attempting to create a folder structure with folder "X" contained in parent folder "Y". If the creation of parent folder "Y" fails, then creating folder "X" will fail, and Box will display this "Dependency failed" message.
Insufficient Permissions to Upload File
In order to make an action on a file you must have Editor access or above. Check What are the different permission levels for collaborators? and verify that the file owner has granted the required permission for you to save the required file. If you are unable to act on a file because of permissions settings, alert the folder owner. Once you have the right permissions for this file, try your action again
If you are unable to create content directly in the Box folder, confirm that your Admin has not restricted content creation in Enterprise Settings.
Sometimes, another person may be editing your file in Box and you may not have the required permission to overwrite that file. In this case, save the file to another folder and restart the Box application.
Sometimes, a local application (for example MS Word or Adobe Acrobat) may hold on to the file. Restart any local applications that may have opened the file, then manually re-save your file.
If these fixes don’t work, then you may need to restart your computer. If you restart your computer and Box Drive is configured to start automatically, then this file will begin saving automatically.
Read Only: Move Failed (Error Code: 02)
You do not have sufficient permissions to move this file. Close the file, and Box Drive will move the file back to it's original location. If Drive fails to move the file back, move it back manually.
Read Only: Move Failed (Error Code: 03)
Read Only: Move/Rename Failed (Error Codes: 01 & 04)
This error occurs when you attempt to move or rename a file and you do not have sufficient permissions to do so. Check with the file owner and request appropriate permissions.
Read Only: Rename Failed (Error Code: 05)
Read Only: Upload Failed (Error Code: 06)
This error indicates that Box Drive was unable to save your changes to the file because you lack sufficient permissions to make edits. Close the file, and any changes will be saved as a new copy on your desktop. Move this local copy into a folder that you own to save it to Box.
Read Only: Upload Failed (Error Code: 07)
This error indicates that you don't have sufficient permissions to edit this file. Check with the file owner and request appropriate permissions before trying again.
Rename File Failed: Name Is Already Taken
This rare issue may occur when Box Drive is resolving a file name conflict. Rename the file in your local Box folder and then retry.
Unable to Download Mac Package Created on Box
Mac packages are not currently supported in Box Drive. Use the Box web application to upload or download Mac Packages. For iWork files (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), you can also convert them to single files by opening the file and choosing File > Advanced > Change File Type and select "Single File".
What are iWork Packages? See here.
Unable to Update Mac Package File
Mac packages are not currently supported in Box Drive. Use the Box web application to upload or download Mac Packages. For iWork files (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), you can also convert them to single files by opening the file and choosing File > Advanced > Change File Type and select "Single File".
What are iWork Packages? See here.
Unable to Update Web Document File
This error occurs when you attempt to edit a web based document type - a Google Doc, for example. You will need to use the appropriate web application to edit this file.
Upload File Failed: File May Be in Use
This error indicates that the file is in use by another local application. Close all applications that may be using the file, then restart Box Drive and try again.
Upload Failed for G Suite File
This error indicates that the file failed to upload since G Suite files cannot be created or modified locally in Box Drive. To resolve the issue for G Suite files added to Box Drive, delete the files or move them outside of Box Drive. For files that have been modified locally, rename them on Box.com and delete the local modified versions.
Upload Failed for Unsupported File Type
This error indicates that the file failed to upload because the file type you attempted to upload is not supported in Box Drive.
Uploading Files Failed: Folder Deleted on Box
Sometimes, a parent folder may have been deleted from Box. As a result, an item within the deleted folder may not be saved or moved because there is no existing record of the parent folder.
Move the file to another location and then retry.