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Question

discrepancy in Box cloud data view between iOS and Windows clients

  • May 22, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 24 views
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On iOS 15.x device using box client, we see all the same content as one would see if they logged into the Box cloud account via browser.

On Windows 10 (21H2 fully up to date), however running either Box Sync (so that we can adjust the local storage location) OR running running Box Drive, we do NOT see most of the folders and content that are in the cloud.  Creating small txt files replicates fine across both platforms.  But any large changes done from iOS do NOT show up as visible on the windows machines.  eg, created  folder with about 100 jpg files, screenshots from the iOS device.  Again that's visible in the web interface, but not in either Box Sync or Box Drive on multiple Win10 machines all using the same Box account.

Stopping and starting the Windows clients, rebooting, removing and reinstalling the windows clients, doesn't change anything.   The Windows clients all show as synced up to date.

Suggestions to resolve?

 

 

 

    2 replies

    C
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    Hi Haron, 

    Welcome to the Box Community!

    I understand that there are some items that do not sync into your Box Desktop applications, I'm happy to help and provide some tips!

    Can you try exit Box Drive or Box Sync (if it is running) from the system tray, if necessary, use Task Manager to end the Box.exe process and then restart the app again, see if the items will appear in the Box folder on your desktop?

    You might also want to look out for "Unsupported Name" on the files/ folders that are not syncing to your Box desktop apps but are seen in Box webapp. Some operating systems do not support item names containing some special characters:

    • Windows OS restrictions:
      • < (less than)
      • > (greater than)
      • : (colon)
      • " (double quote)
      • / (forward slash)
      • \ (backslash)
      • | (vertical bar or pipe)
      • ? (question mark)
      • * (asterisk)
      • If Windows does not support certain characters in file names, Box marks them as problem files. See the list of Windows file name restrictions. Windows file name restrictions also shown below:
      • Windows does not support folder names that end with a . (period) character.

    If the file or folder on Box has an unsupported name, you have to rename the item on Box.com and Box Drive/ Box Sync will re-process the download to your computer.

    C
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    Neither of the suggestions are applicable.  There are no Unsupported Name messages or odd characters, very basic file/folder names with alphanumerics only.  Machines have been rebooted probably a dozen times each and  Box clients have been uninstalled, installed an re-setup at-least a 6 or 7 times, zero change in behaviour.

    The only way to get access to changes in data from these machines is to login to the cloud portal and manually download the content from there, since it's seen or being synced from the Windows clients.

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