Question

How To Install Dropbox Client as a Service on Ubuntu 20.04

Posted on July 29, 2021
DigitalOcean Droplets Ubuntu 20.04
Asked by 0xchris

I had previously gotten Dropbox installed and configured on an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS droplet, though it was buggy and I had to reinstall it about once per week, but now it stopped working altogether.

I have been following the most recent guide that I could find on the subject (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-dropbox-client-as-a-service-on-ubuntu-14-04), but when I launch the dropboxd service, I get the following error:

$ ls /opt/dropbox/

dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._openssl.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/cryptography.hazmat.bindings._padding.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/psutil._psutil_linux.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/psutil._psutil_posix.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/apex._apex.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/tornado.speedups.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/wrapt._wrappers.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/PyQt5.QtWidgets.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/PyQt5.QtCore.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/PyQt5.QtGui.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
dropbox: load fq extension '/opt/dropbox/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-127.4.4265/PyQt5.QtDBus.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so'
b'!! (Qt:Fatal) This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "xcb".\n\nAvailable platform plugins are: xcb.\n\nReinstalling the application may fix this problem.'

I am working on a freshly created droplet, but I had been working on a prior droplet which had once seen Dropbox working and received the same error.

It appears this may be a Qt related issue? Has anyone been able to successfully run a stable instance of Dropbox on a DO droplet with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS?

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0xchris • July 30, 2021

Accepted Answer

SOLVED!!!

There were many things I needed to do to correctly configure this. Your mileage may vary, but I first issued ldd on each of the .so files above. Some of them had missing dependencies, so I installed each one of those via apt.

This got me further than before, and now there were no errors, but Dropbox just hung at the command line, and did not produce the expected URL to link my account. After waiting ~5 minutes, I killed the process with <Ctrl>+C.

I then headed over to Dropbox’s website: https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux and followed their official guide for installing the headless version. Before I started, I removed all prior installed files with sudo rm -rf /opt/dropbox.

Even still, after installing dropboxd in my home directory, I ended up with the same hanging issue. So then, finally, I downloaded the dropbox.py script from Dropbox and placed it in my PATH. I could then issue dropbox.py start and viola!! I was greeted with the URL to link my account.

All is working now, but what a nightmare!