[Helmling]

Okay, I am wowed by this concept. I've been looking for something that would sync my stuff, but to have it in the cloud too! I'm ready to buy in and pony up the 9.99 a month for the 50 Gb, except there's one problem.

Dropbox won't run on my Macbook.

My mini is up and running. My iPhone's good. But when I launch Dropbox for the first time, nothing happens. Literally nothing. They sent me a new build and now I don't even get the error message I was getting before.

Their tech support is on the case, but at the rate of one e-mail per day. Anybody have any ideas what could be blocking this thing from running?

[Helmling]

Update: I created a new user to test it out and Dropbox worked fine there. So it's something that's loading under my profile that's interfering with it. The only thing I see under Login items is some Adobe something-or-other. Could that be it?

[Simon]

Is Dropbox set to launch at login?

Does ~/.dropbox exist?

[mduell]

Dropbox doesn't need to launch at login, you can run it any time.

I wonder if there's something in your .dropbox directory or user's Library or similar screwing things up.

[Simon]

Copy ~/Library to the new account. Apply the right permissions. Log into the new account. Did that break Dropbox?

[Helmling]

I'll try that later.

While I've got you dropbox users, though, let me ask you:

Do you use iPhoto and iTunes with dropbox? I'm thinking of upgrading to the 50Gb so that I can sync my family's iPhoto and iTunes libraries across all our machines.

I guess a related question is: If I just drag and drop one iTunes folders into another will it merge them? (Right now we have two iTunes libraries purchased from the same account with a lot of overlap but some songs only in one or the other.)

[-Q-]

While the folders will merge their contents just fine, iTunes or iPhoto on the individual machines won't add the files to their respective libraries until you use the Add to Library command in the file menu. You'll have to pick one library database to use as the 'master' and then add the missing files.

You could also use something like SuperSync to get the iTunes libraries merged and then upload everything to DropBox

[andi*pandi]

I'm a fan of dropbox... but is there a cheaper option than 9.99 per month just to share/sync libraries? Point them all to the same place.

I have merged itunes libraries before by just moving them, but I think I also erased the database and started from scratch.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Helmling 

Do you use iPhoto and iTunes with dropbox? I'm thinking of upgrading to the 50Gb so that I can sync my family's iPhoto and iTunes libraries across all our machines.

I guess a related question is: If I just drag and drop one iTunes folders into another will it merge them? (Right now we have two iTunes libraries purchased from the same account with a lot of overlap but some songs only in one or the other.)

iPhoto? No; I use Picasa.
iTunes? Yes; note that having iTunes open on more than one computer at a time may cause issues and it will rebuild your library every time you change platforms (Mac/Win) or iTunes versions (if one computer is out of date).

You'll need to add the files to iTunes.

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

I'm a fan of dropbox... but is there a cheaper option than 9.99 per month just to share/sync libraries? Point them all to the same place.

2GB free, if your library is that small.

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by mduell 

iPhoto? No; I use Picasa.
iTunes? Yes; note that having iTunes open on more than one computer at a time may cause issues and it will rebuild your library every time you change platforms (Mac/Win) or iTunes versions (if one computer is out of date).

You'll need to add the files to iTunes.

I'm not following you on iTunes. I'll only be using Mac's for the iTunes files, so I guess it's just important to keep the versions up to date for that? What other issues, though? And what do you mean "add the files" to iTunes? What files do you mean?

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

I'm a fan of dropbox... but is there a cheaper option than 9.99 per month just to share/sync libraries? Point them all to the same place.

I have merged itunes libraries before by just moving them, but I think I also erased the database and started from scratch.

Erased what database?