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"Cloud download icon" on all files when trying to use BOX DRIVE?

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15 comments

  • Kurt.Dykstra

    Yeah.  Welcome to the party.  This "upgrade" basically makes the BOX drive unusable.  Search "Monterey" in the support forum and you'll see a bunch of posts of people having the same problem.  Not sure if this is BOX being caught flat-footed OR Apple being Apple and making life good for it and lousy for pretty much everyone else.  (I'm not enough of a tech guy to know!)  What I DO know is that it is really unfortunate.

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  • Christine Tsin

    I have the same issue but on OS 11.5.2, reinstalling box, restarting, re-enabling box extensions for finder, etc doesn't fix the problem, can't tell if files are being actively synced or not

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  • Julie Andrews

    This is happening on some of my user accounts, most are still running 11.6.2 - any updates or fixes?

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  • Daniel Bermea

    I haven't upgraded to Monterrey and got this problem yesterday. Im running Big Sur 11.6.1. Really aggravating. 

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  • Jeff Storm

    Any resolution for this?

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  • Stephen Caine

    Same here Daniel. Pretty sure this is on Box's end. I put in a support ticket. I'll share the response if they figure it out.

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  • Julie Andrews

    This was the fix I used on my users:

    Quit out of Box by choosing the box icon at the top of your screen, choose the gear icon and choose Quit.

    Run the Uninstaller for box - it’s in the HD/Library/Application Support/Box/ and double click the uninstall_box_drive file. The Terminal window will come up  - you will need to enter your computer password and It will run the uninstaller.

    Download and Run the installer for Box (Box.pkg) - Stop at the log in window (do not log in yet)

    Go back to the terminal app window and copy/paste this:

    defaults write com.box.desktop MacMode fuse

    Hit enter

    Log into box - you should get the empty clouds - not the clouds with the download icon. It worked for me 8 out of 8 times.

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  • Stephen Caine

    Thanks, Julie! This worked perfect.

    Of course, I believe our machines were switched from Kernel mode to FPE mode by our IT team. That makes the Box Drive folder disappear from the desktop. After your fix, the folder came back. Makes me wonder if it's back in Kernel mode.

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  • Joanna Newman

    This is not working for me. I have tried your steps 3 times, and I'm still getting the clouds with the download arrow on them. I don't have any green checkmarks anymore.

    Any other tips?

    Joanna

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  • Matthew Novak

    I couldn't get this workaround to solve this issue. Has anyone heard from Box on this? This is vital to our workflow, as it is for most other folks I'm assuming, I'm surprised this isn't a bigger issue

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  • Jamie Spencer

    Same here, went from an old Macbook running OS10.x to a new M1 on OS12.x—whereas before working in Box was like I was working on local files, now everything has a cloud+arrow icon and needs to be downloaded before opening. (For comparison: a 100mb pdf on the old computer opened in 1 second; on the new computer it now takes 45 seconds to download and open.)

    I have a ticket in with Box but so far that's been supremely unhelpful: I don't need to be pointed to a "how to use Box" guide, I need to know how to make it work correctly again. This is extremely frustrating.

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  • Elizabeth Estefan

    I am having the same issue. Was a resolution found?

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  • Marc Palma

    Any admin or tech solutions personnel from Box ever login here? How is this thread a year old and no response from Box at all? What are we paying for here?

    Julie Andrews - work around, unfortunately, does not work any longer - I am running M1 & OS 13.0.1.

    It is a crying shame there has been no action taken to remedy this. All Windows users have preview function and no cloud w/ downward arrow icon, but the poor saps running Mac (all us creative folk) cannot see previews until clicking the cloud icon, waiting seconds to a minute - this is hundreds of files a day or more. We cannot work this way for ever. 

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  • Heath Raftery

    Eh, I think I finally have a solution that works for me, at least.

    1. Uninstall Box using the "Box Reset Tool" found here. In retrospect, this step was only necessary for Step 3 (which might not be necessary), but it certainly seemed worthwhile at the time and doesn't hurt.
    2. Check the folder that gets created at ~/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box (<date time>) for anything that wasn't synced. For that that was a **stack** of empty folders plus a couple of files I don't care about in "Default Sync Folder". To make them easy to find, I put the Finder window in "list" view and then option-click the disclosure arrow next to the "Box-Box" root folder to open every folder within.
    3. Install Box fresh from here. In retrospect this step might not have been useful, but it doesn't hurt to make sure!
    4. Login and let Box do its initial set up. Shortly afterwards, Box updated itself to 2.40.333. I believe this is why Step 1 is necessary - the installer installs a non-current version, which fails unless the newer version is removed first.
    5. Now the critical step - all the folders appear with their "cloud with down arrow" icon. Instead of clicking on that, right-click each one and choose "Make available offline". This used to have a different meaning, but it seems now files are "on-demand" by default. Selecting this option doesn't remove the cloud icon (sometimes), but it does show an orange progress or a green tick icon next to it!

     

    Finally, I don't have to start every day by clicking all the cloud icons or trying to figure out which computer has the latest version of the file I want. Files are synced in the background, just like back in the Box Sync days, complete with the orange progress icon to keep you informed.

    No doubt Apple's relentless march to removing files from your devices and keeping them oh so kindly on their servers will continue to bite, but for now we can move on.

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  • Marc Palma

    I have set a reminder to visit this mid-October as I am a bit too busy to try (and hopefully not have some technical glitch happen). I hope this truly is a fix. It would alleviate my having to save a separate file on an external HDD to view files quickly. I am hopeful and thank you Heath for looking into this!

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