Error Message 'Unable to open folder'
I recently installed box drive on a new device, and after a few hours of normal use, I've been getting bombarded with a strange error message 'unable to open folder' for many folders i have tried opening (though certainly exist within our shared documents).
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The new version of Box Drive for MacOS did not fix the problem.
Other symptoms that I noticed are:
1) Ping and trace route times for www.box.com are excessive when compare with other cloud drive services for example:
googledrive and dropbox ping times are 9-10 ms with 0% packet loss
box ping times are 70 to 300 ms with 0 to 30% packet loss2) My team notice that file upload and download speeds are faster when processing through the web interface vs. using the Box App.
3) Longer ping times and packet loss correlates to UI error and significant loss of computer performance. I see no performance losses when I quit the box app.
Is anyone else see these problems? I suspect if it is related to a inadequate sync algorithm in the box app.
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I have been seeing this lately and seem to notice a common problem in my case.
I am working from a Win10 64 with Box Drive installed, connected via our OKTA MFA single sign on application.
When I leave a document opened overnight from a Box Drive folder inside an application(Word), but I am logged out of our MFA Okta accounts due to our 24 hour access window, the connection is broken between the local copy I am working on and the Box Drive to Box.com cloud repository.
It seems if I open the Box Drive SEARCH BOX which is installed with Box Drive, and exit the account, then open the Box.com site in the browser and sign in, it repairs the connection.
Not sure if this works for everyone, but I'm just sharing.
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I am getting the exact same error messages running on Windows 10. The only Adobe product that I know is installed is Acrobat. This has been going on for a couple of months and it is annoying to have these notifications bombard my computer with at least 20 at a time in rapid succession.
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This is what Box wanted me to perform on my Windows machine. I do not have Admin rights to do so.
Their investigation into this issue concluded that there was an executable file continually scanning/crawling your Box Drive content resulting in the encountered error messages.
The at fault file was found to be dllhost.exe. If the at fault file is temporarily removed, it will confirm the resolution to the behavior being experienced, which is why our engineering team recommends that you block this executable file explicitly within the affected user's system via the banned process regkey 'BannedProcessNames' within Registry editor.
My in house support Team said that this is caused by someone attempting to save files to Box with Invalid characters. Not sure. -
I'm having the same issue too! This happens every morning for a handful of users.
It seems to be caused by a lot of Powershell calls (Box Support reviewed the logs, suggested I reach out to Microsoft, who did not help).Box appears to function but the notifications come in all at once (sometimes 70+ notifications)
OS: Windows 10 Pro 2009 (version 20H2)
Box version: 2.24.208
Workspace One v21.07 and Carbon Black Cloud Sensor v3.7.0.1253The user has Carbon Black Cloud Sensor installed, but removing that program (and even reinstalling Box) did not resolve the issue. The error messages happen every morning around the same time (I think when the PowerShell calls start) and multiple notifications come in at once. WorkspaceOne location sync happens about 30 minutes before the errors come in.
Below is a snippet from a log (for BOX) that shows some of the Powershell calls (please note file names have been redacted, but this is for multiple folders):2022-01-24 09:44:04.322 INFO 0x00003320 [winfs:461][onCloseFile] [powershell.exe] "***filename redacted***"
2022-01-24 09:44:04.323 INFO 0x00003314 [winfs:537][onGetFileInfo] [powershell.exe] "***filename redacted***"
2022-01-24 09:44:04.323 INFO 0x00003324 [winfs:421][onOpenFile] [powershell.exe] "***filename redacted***", shareMode: 0x2010, desiredAccess: 0x100001
2022-01-24 09:44:04.323 INFO 0x00003318 [winfs:421][onOpenFile] [powershell.exe] "***filename redacted***", shareMode: 0x2010, desiredAccess: 0x100001
2022-01-24 09:44:04.324 INFO 0x0000331c [winfs:461][onCloseFile] [powershell.exe] "***filename redacted***"
2022-01-24 09:44:04.324 INFO 0x0000332c [folderfetcher:187][fetchWithWait] Fetching inodeId: 1886, path: "***filename redacted***", priority: 205497324, fetching state: 1, max wait: 30000 initiated by: powershell.exe
2022-01-24 09:44:04.351 INFO 0x00003184 [baseengineipcreceiver:361][reportFolderFetchError] folderInodeId: 1886, reason: UNKNOWN"If anyone has a solution I would welcome it, since it has yet to be resolved!
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Just seeing your comment. The company I work for is having the same notification issues and we have tracked it down to being a Tenable scanner. I think it is the log4j scanner, but that's not my department and I don't know for sure. That scanner uses powershell to do the scanning. Tenable allows you to exclude certain directories on Unix and Mac, but not Windows. So until Box decides to address this in the Box Drive client, you either have to just live with the notifications or disable the scanner.
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Hi,
Ah yes we actually uninstalled the scanner, and the notifications went away.
We added it again and they came back.
I am looking into disabling powershell in a Box registry key but have not had any luck with that yet. I need to pin down the exact name that powershell uses.
Here is what I have found from Box support but no luck seeing it work yet.
When we see this in the Streem logs through Box Drive, it indicates there's some program being used to traverse the user's content through Box, as mentioned before, but in this case, powershell.exe itself is not the individual program, so we can't be sure what the individual program is that needs to be added to the "BannedProcessNames" registry. What we can recommend, to be sure what's doing this, please use Process Explorer to help identify and confirm whether it is in fact Tenable or not, as this should also give you the full name to use in the process to add to the "BannedProcessName" registry key section. This could even help provide the full name of Tenable, and whether it's Tenable.IO (as we've seen for other customers encountering this), or something else. It could also provide a whole different program at fault, for you to add with this.
Please note however, if you would instead want information on banning powershell.exe instead, this decision would need to be made by your IT Team, and any more details surrounding why these processes are behaving in this way would be better directed at Microsoft Support as the issue stems from their programs/processes traversing your user's Box content. -
I would try the steps below per Jessica Winsett. It worked for us!
I think we actually do use Nessus too, so that would make sense.
We ended up having to (for the few affected users) exclude Powershell as a "banned process" for Box, for a workaround:
Close Box completely and set the following registry key:- Create the regkey
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Box/Box/BannedProcessNamesand set to aREG_MULTI_SZtype. - Then add the name of the process to the list,
powershell.exe
I also added DBUtilRemovalTool.exe to the list as well, since the affected users were all on Dell Laptops. After a restart and exiting and then signing back in to Box, the error notifications stopped.
No word yet on a more direct fix.
- Create the regkey
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Have we confirmed that adding the keys is the fix? We use Tenable.io and it seems that this happens to our users from time to time when a scan runs.
What does this actually do?
- Create the regkey
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Box/Box/BannedProcessNamesand set to aREG_MULTI_SZtype. - Then add the name of the process to the list,
powershell.exe
- Create the regkey
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