[Q] Disabling Android 2.2 DropBoxManager

epolaris · Mar 19, 2011

Good Day Folks.

I'm a Noob in need of help and i'm hoping the more experienced among us might be able to assist. I have an issue with disappearing phone storage. Over the course of a week I realized that I was losing about 1MB a day. My phone would basically be dormant and I would still see my storage space dropping by this amount everyday.
Cache cleaning didn't work. Later I realized that Android creates a bunch of log files in Data/System/Dropbox that was responsible for the disappearing phone storage trick I've been seeing for a while now.
I know now that Google has incorporated into Android as of the 2.2 iteration, a DropBox Manager that's responsible for logging all of the events that take place during the course of a running Android session. Everything from what took place at boot to force close details.
I understand that this is used for debugging purposes but I'm no developer

. So my question is.... Can this DropBox Manager be disabled....somehow.
I really don't need all these files (and its A LOT OF THEM) being created as they serve no practical purpose for me. Not sure if anyone else might have noticed this but I'm hoping to receive some help. Even if it means pointing me in the right direction so I can work on it myself.
I really don't have a clue on how to start. Any help will be appreciated....Seriously...

Currently using G1 with CM6 Magpie running on EZTERRY's 2.6.34.7 kernel.
Its perfect except for this annoying problem.......

Dark3n · Mar 19, 2011

Hm what happens if you rename the directory. It might throw some errors in the logger, but probably won't create anymore files.
I just deleted the content of my dropbox folder, the DropboxManagerService was throwing some errors that he could not open files, but the phone was fine, no FCs or anything.

epolaris · Mar 19, 2011

Renaming the directory just results in a random reboot. My guess is that when Android tries to create a new log, its unable to find the directory and then it just freezes and after a while it reboots. Once restarted it just reappears... I've tried that too.
And its true.. Its ok to delete the files. Its what I do currently. All of those files in Data/System/Dropbox as well as the ones located in Data/Tombstones are ok to delete. As I said, its just used for debugging purposes. Whats really annoying though is that, no matter how many times you delete anything, they just get repopulated just as fast as they're deleted. I'm ok with micro-managing my memory and phone storage (its a G1 after all) but this is ridiculous. It just creates too many of these log files too quickly.
If there was a way to turn the DropBoxManager service off then that would be the end of it all.
What's unusual about it too is that in my particular case, the contents of these text files just have two things listed in them. Pertaining to my online accounts associated with the phone: My Google account and My Whatsapp account...
It just repeats the same thing over and over again. I'm starting to think that the event data might actually be synchronization data or at least synchronization attempts made at regular intervals. But ultimately i'm guessing....
I really don't have a clue... Have you ever heard of anything like this on XDA......possible resolutions of this issue?

Dark3n · Mar 19, 2011

epolaris said:
I really don't have a clue... Have you ever heard of anything like this on XDA......possible resolutions of this issue?

Not yet

.
What about replacing the folder by a symlink to /dev/null ?
You could also try to change permission on the folder.

epolaris · Mar 19, 2011

Ok... I'm a real Noob but I'll take a shot.. When you say symlink what do you mean.
I'm not really familiar with Android at that level yet its really just flashing and such.
But I know a symlink is really just a reference to a location that the OS would interpret and follow (like a pointer i think). So, is it that you're suggesting some sort of redirection where the Data/System/Dropbox directory is pointed to another arbitrary location. Kind of like a creating a dead link that Android is unable to follow up on. Or maybe, redirecting the folder to an entirely new location that Android would then follow. I'm not sure... How do you perform a symlink in Android... I'm willing to try.

Dark3n · Mar 19, 2011

You can do it with a console on the phone it self or using adb shell. You need root of course.
You could make a link to another location where you have more space?
Or you change to permissions of that directory to write only.
Or you can mount a different file system to that directory that is read only.
On how to do that just google a bit for linux tutorials on that topic.

I have just googled a bit and it seems you can't symlink directories to /dev/null.

If all that doesnt help post again, there might be an option to make an app delete the files automaticly, first time they get created.
If that would be an option too let me know, im in the mood to program something intresting

.

epolaris · Mar 20, 2011

Disabling Android 2.2 DropboxManager [RESOLVED]

I took your advice and did the research you suggested and it worked.
The first thing I tried was changing the permissions on the "Data/System/Dropbox" directory and it worked. But I didn't use CHMOD and console command line to do it.
I have a program called Root Explorer that allows me to permanently change the permissions on any file or folder I select. I set all of the offending folders to read only and the log files stopped being written to those folders.
These are the directories I set to read only:

1. "Data/System/Dropbox"
2. "Data/System/UsageStats"
3. "Data/Tombstones"

Since changing the permissions on these folders my phone storage has stopped dwindling out of control. No additional programming necessary

Disabling the DropBoxMangerService itself is not necessary which is good.
I'm going to take your advice and read up some more on Linux commands (specifically Ubuntu as its what I currently use).
You have been very helpful, thanks for the advice. If you have any ideas about Froyo ROMS (Maybe even Gingerbread

) I should try let me know.
Thanks again....

vax · Jul 11, 2011

I have also found these files. They can take MUCH space in memory and nothing seems to delete them. I made the dropbox system folder RO but I think this is a bug. It should be reported to the dropbox team. Is there a bug report form somewhere? I did not find it... Just found the forum, QA,...

[edit]I reported it in the forum... Just see http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=41227 [/edit]

Dark3n · Jul 11, 2011

vax said:
I have also found these files. They can take MUCH space in memory and nothing seems to delete them. I made the dropbox system folder RO but I think this is a bug. It should be reported to the dropbox team. Is there a bug report form somewhere? I did not find it... Just found the forum, QA,...

[edit]I reported it in the forum... Just see http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=41227 [/edit]

You are mistaken: /data/system/dropbox, has NOTHING todo with www.dropbox.com !

See http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/DropBoxManager.html

Trebuchette · Aug 23, 2011

Dark3n said:
You are mistaken: /data/system/dropbox, has NOTHING todo with www.dropbox.com !

See http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/DropBoxManager.html

Hey, just looked at your SD Maid app (looks cool).

So what do you know about /data/system/dropbox? I just read that htc uses the dir to store phone events which is then sent to the htc cloud of spying-on-your-ass. But since non-htc phones have this dir, is htc merely misusing the directory and it has other legit uses, or is this a directory we should try to keep cleaned out?

(I like the idea of changing perms so nothing writes to it if that's the case.)

Mittaa · Jan 28, 2012

600 MB additional free storage

Hi all
Just found a smart way to increase your Dropbox account with 600 MB:
1 Sign into your existing Dropbox account (or create a new account)
2 Goto https://www.dropbox.com/free
3 Follow instructions ... and voila 600 MB additional free storage

Dark3n · Jan 29, 2012

Mittaa said:
Hi all
Just found a smart way to increase your Dropbox account with 600 MB:
1 Sign into your existing Dropbox account (or create a new account)
2 Goto https://www.dropbox.com/free
3 Follow instructions ... and voila 600 MB additional free storage

Yay, nice to see you didn't read the thread at all.

This has nothing todo with dropbox.com

Mysticales · Sep 4, 2012

Yea other day I got the SD Maid, and the Pro version after I saw how handy it was. I too on my G1 (with 2.2) see that dropbox folder.. and lately Ive been thinking its causing my G1 to constantly reboot. When I look, it has 300+ files in it. So I clear that folder and seems to stop rebooting for a lil while.

Not sure what the deal is here however, been trying to find out. HOWEVER it only seems to reboot once its connected to the internet, so I am wondering if this is where it tries to upload and so. Not really sure. That and its hard to tell in logcat whats going on before it reboots.

apsanchezs · Nov 3, 2012

Thanks

Excellent information. This works on my Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro MK16a, Rooted. Thank you so much. My best regards.

davevanoerle · Nov 3, 2012

Try to change the permisions of the folder, I'm not sure if it would work but you could try ^^

Sent from my GT-I9001 using xda premium

apsanchezs · Nov 5, 2012

All is ok

All was fine. The permissions :laugh:changed with root explorer. Thank you so much

tweakradje · Aug 31, 2016

Note completely disabled but only 1 file in the /data/system/dropbox folder with these Android shell commands (or use Sqlite3 editor):

content insert --uri content://settings/secure --bind name:s:dropbox_max_files --bind value:i:1

Or for Android 4.2+

content insert --uri content://settings/global --bind name:s:dropbox_max_files --bind value:i:1

settings put global dropbox_max_files 1

Reboot.

more dropboxmanager settings:

dropbox_age_seconds
dropbox_max_files
dropbox_quota_kb
dropbox_quota_percent
dropbox_reserve_percent

ElwOOd_CbGp · Jul 9, 2019

I've been using the advice from this thread to control this "dropbox" data collection directory for several years now until I updated to 9.0 and found that the folder and default permissions were restored after every reboot. Was irritating bc I can use root to modify /system but no longer have control over my own data partition

Something is over-riding my root-user!!!

I tried different apps, TWRP's FM, adb, and almost gave up when init.d scripts wouldn't work either. init.d will work tho. A simple script to run

Code:

#!/system/xbin/sh

busybox rm -f /data/system/dropbox

at boot. You can probably chown and chmod if you want but I just deleted it. Just put it in your init.d folder and make sure you give it the correct permissions (root:shell -755), then immediately perform a soft reboot. Use hardware keys if you have to. You want the phone to go immediately OFF, no spinny wheels or "powering off" notifications. That's the only way I could get rid of the damn thing.

Anyway, I came across this thread while searching for a solution and thought I would add this in case any other paranoids like me are concerned about this mysterious "dropbox" directory. This will probably break any ability for google to troubleshoot your phone but I don't think that's real anyway. It's just spyware as far as I'm concerned.

[Q] Disabling Android 2.2 DropBoxManager

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