Dropbox deleted our data and then restored it with the wrong dates. Users of Dropbox need to be aware that the service has a massive flaw. If things go wrong and you have to restore lost data, it will re-date all your files and folders to the date of restoration.
Lots of people online will tell you that its impossible for Dropbox to accidently delete all those files that you have backed up in the Dropbox. Do not beleive a word: its data and so anything is possible.
Dropbox say that the deletion is caused by something on a local machine: the OS controls the actions. 'When the Dropbox application recognizes a change in the pathway, it then Sync the change it sees. If files are moved, or deleted, it will Sync them as such etc etc.'
Therefore, it appears that it is entirely possible for Syncing to go wrong.
What happened to us was that somone was working on a laptop and raising invoices and then saving them. It is entirely possible that Microsoft installed an automatic update at the time, and whatever happened, it was automatic and not down to any user intervention. Then the deletion commenced.
The first we noticed was that the Dropox icon was missing. Closer investigation revealed that Dropbox was deleting thousands of files. Like a rash, the Sync moved across different pcs and laptops until we lost a lot of data.
On restoring the data, we discovered that Dropbox has modified each and every file. We now do not know when anything was created.
What was also interesting was that there was no log to say what caused the issue.
We are moving to a different backup system. The problem we are left with is that we have around about 7 years of work saved in the Dropbox, and it is all now dated 22 July 2019.
