Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Resolved Reconnect unsupported Leopard/Snow Leopard Macs to Dropbox
- Thread starter eyoungren
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Even though Dropbox is still working and will continue to do so through May 18th(thank goodness my thesis will be turned in by then), I went ahead and put this into practice.
I have an Intel Mini sitting on top of my Xserve G5. It's, of course, running headless, but does have Dropbox installed.
I played around tonight with using it as a Dropbox replacement on my Quicksilver. I have it set to automatically map and mount on the desktop when logging in(which admittedly is a rare event on this particular computer).
So far so good, however.
Now all I have to hope for is that Dropbox will keep Snow Leopard support for a while longer.
I have an Intel Mini sitting on top of my Xserve G5. It's, of course, running headless, but does have Dropbox installed.
I played around tonight with using it as a Dropbox replacement on my Quicksilver. I have it set to automatically map and mount on the desktop when logging in(which admittedly is a rare event on this particular computer).
So far so good, however.
Now all I have to hope for is that Dropbox will keep Snow Leopard support for a while longer.
Attachments
I'm looking someone, to help me with some tests with very-very pre-alpha version of my "client". Terminal experience is required for the current version.
Currently working:
- select which folder want to sync
- one way sync (download only) of the selected folders (select the required files based upon the size of the file)
minimal OS version: 10.5.8, maybe any 10.5.x version are OK
Currently working:
- select which folder want to sync
- one way sync (download only) of the selected folders (select the required files based upon the size of the file)
minimal OS version: 10.5.8, maybe any 10.5.x version are OK
Snow Leopard is next to be told by developers to go to iHell. It's coming due to XCode versions dropping support.
See: http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2015/04/beware-undead-snow-leopard.html
Just a reminder: today (17 May) is the last day when we can still sync our PowerPC Macs with Dropbox.
I'm going to start up my Macs and sync for the last time...
Then move everything to Box.com. At least they offer WebDAV support which works all the way back to Mac OS 9.
I'm going to start up my Macs and sync for the last time...
Then move everything to Box.com. At least they offer WebDAV support which works all the way back to Mac OS 9.
I'm ready.Just a reminder: today (17 May) is the last day when we can still sync our PowerPC Macs with Dropbox.
I'm going to start up my Macs and sync for the last time...
Then move everything to Box.com. At least they offer WebDAV support which works all the way back to Mac OS 9.
The MP at work is sharing, the Apple File Protocol port in the router is set to forward to the MP and I've been connecting to it for things for the last few weeks.
My MBP is running Snow Leopard and they have not cut us off there (yet) so I have that option as well.
When they cut me off for my iMac G5, my Quicksilver and my 17" PowerBook G4 I plan on deleting all the Dropbox content on those drives (for space) and then just accessing the MP when I need to. A quick Fluid app generation for the Dropbox site (I ain't logging in using T4Fx) and I will be set. At least as well as I can make it anyway.
I fired up my 1ghz Ti this evening and had a last hurrah. I had some files in Dropbox that had been added since the last time I booted that computer into Leopard(I have been running in OS 9 lately for some old games) and that I thought would be useful to have on that computer.
I'm traveling and the TiBook is the only PPC computer I have with me, so it's the only one I can do today. I even had to share the internet connection with from my MBP, as the PCMCIA card I use in it is 2.4ghz and that band is painfully slow here with poor reception. The 5ghz band is not much better, but at least will run a little bit faster.
I'm traveling and the TiBook is the only PPC computer I have with me, so it's the only one I can do today. I even had to share the internet connection with from my MBP, as the PCMCIA card I use in it is 2.4ghz and that band is painfully slow here with poor reception. The 5ghz band is not much better, but at least will run a little bit faster.
Just got my cutoff notice from Dropbox so I gave them a piece of my mind.
Unless they are willing to cut off Yosemite based Macs from Dropbox they will NEVER prevent my PowerPC based Macs from connecting to their service.
As long as I can share the Dropbox folder from the Mac Pro or my SL MBP I've got access.
Funnily enough, they don't seem to have logged me out yet even though they told me they were.
Jerks!
Unless they are willing to cut off Yosemite based Macs from Dropbox they will NEVER prevent my PowerPC based Macs from connecting to their service.
As long as I can share the Dropbox folder from the Mac Pro or my SL MBP I've got access.
Funnily enough, they don't seem to have logged me out yet even though they told me they were.
Jerks!
I'm posting from my G5, and it hasn't logged me out either.
I'm still going to be curious if there won't be some "hacky" workaround once it does log us off - like trying to make it think our clients are a later version. Of course, that's just a stopgap.
I am hopeful someone (like the poster above) can come up with a workaround, possibly even using the Linux client.
My next little project is to take a stab using brew at a couple of open source options that might give us a possibility, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm still going to be curious if there won't be some "hacky" workaround once it does log us off - like trying to make it think our clients are a later version. Of course, that's just a stopgap.
I am hopeful someone (like the poster above) can come up with a workaround, possibly even using the Linux client.
My next little project is to take a stab using brew at a couple of open source options that might give us a possibility, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm wondering if the fact that at least two of the Macs on my account are Yosemite and Snow Leopard is keeping all my other Leopard only Macs logged in.
I guess we'll see tomorrow.
The only PPC Mac I have with me at the moment is my TiBook, but it still syncs fine and none of my other computers appear to have been logged out.
I, too, got the mail saying "at least one of your computers is a Mac and uses 10.4..." etc. and was informed, I was cut off. Actually I have no other than that one PowerPC-Mac syncing with dropbox.
I have the dropbox app running in the backround and shut down my Mac several times since the email. today I threw a new file on the folder and it synced. Lucky me (maybe they will come after me later than they informed me...).
I have the dropbox app running in the backround and shut down my Mac several times since the email. today I threw a new file on the folder and it synced. Lucky me (maybe they will come after me later than they informed me...).
Now that we're done, I'm having more fun
So…looks like it took almost two days to get to me but they forcibly logged me out of my Quicksilver.
So, now my plan is engaged. In the screen cap you see the Dropbox folder shared from the Mac Pro at work on my Quicksilver's desktop and the Dropbox Fluid app I created for the website.
You may not know but you can change the User Agent of any Fluid created web app you make. I changed mine to reflect Yosemite and Firefox 36. But I decided to jab at Dropbox a little too.
This will be in their server logs…
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:36.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/36.0 ****** YOU DROPBOX_LONG LIVE POWERPC
Without the asterisks of course. I also created a folder in my dropbox with the same idea.
Childish I know, but screw 'em.
So…looks like it took almost two days to get to me but they forcibly logged me out of my Quicksilver.
So, now my plan is engaged. In the screen cap you see the Dropbox folder shared from the Mac Pro at work on my Quicksilver's desktop and the Dropbox Fluid app I created for the website.
You may not know but you can change the User Agent of any Fluid created web app you make. I changed mine to reflect Yosemite and Firefox 36. But I decided to jab at Dropbox a little too.
This will be in their server logs…
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:36.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/36.0 ****** YOU DROPBOX_LONG LIVE POWERPC
Without the asterisks of course. I also created a folder in my dropbox with the same idea.
Childish I know, but screw 'em.
Attachments
heh, I guess I was happy to fast in my post above. Got cut off today (20th). Thought it might have been, because I synced yesterday and "gave them a sign". But since it is 2 days later for tevion and Erik, too and I guess you probably synced the days before, too (I was not), I guess it has nothing to do with "giving them a sign".
Do you all really want a solution?
It's hilarious. And stupid. And VERY temporary with lots of potential issues. I am sort of hesitant to put it on here because Dropbox folks may change their stuff to counteract it.
1. Change your Mac OS Version to 10.6.8 via these instructions:
https://justindaigle.com/blog/2010/02/tutorial-change-mac-os-x-system-version/
2. DO NOT RESTART.
3. Just run Dropbox again. Log in. Let the "newer" interface resync your files. It will take longer than normal. It did not write over any of my files and even uploaded the only file I added to my Dropbox account from another computer today.
4. Delete the Dropbox shortcut in the startup list in System Preferences -> Users. It will probably just log you back out again, so not particularly a big deal.
5. With Dropbox running, reverse your Mac OS version to 10.5.8 to prevent other weird issues from happening. (By the way, with your OS version string updated, DO NOT RUN SYSTEM UPDATE.)
Problems:
If you need to resync after a restart, you will have to repeat the process. Boo. But, it does seem to sync files and even kicks out some weird plain text files relating to server addresses. However, it eventually does sync successfully.
The client app looks a little bit nice and upgraded, but it is not fully functional. It will open your Dropbox folder. It will point to the Dropbox site, but it will not show the little contextual menu for settings. It also shows files in a strange order - most recent file (in the image below) and then older files. No idea.
Crazy.
After taking that screenshot below, it did prompt me to have them automatically uploaded to Dropbox. So, parts of it continue to work just fine, but that contextual link does not work.
It's hilarious. And stupid. And VERY temporary with lots of potential issues. I am sort of hesitant to put it on here because Dropbox folks may change their stuff to counteract it.
1. Change your Mac OS Version to 10.6.8 via these instructions:
https://justindaigle.com/blog/2010/02/tutorial-change-mac-os-x-system-version/
2. DO NOT RESTART.
3. Just run Dropbox again. Log in. Let the "newer" interface resync your files. It will take longer than normal. It did not write over any of my files and even uploaded the only file I added to my Dropbox account from another computer today.
4. Delete the Dropbox shortcut in the startup list in System Preferences -> Users. It will probably just log you back out again, so not particularly a big deal.
5. With Dropbox running, reverse your Mac OS version to 10.5.8 to prevent other weird issues from happening. (By the way, with your OS version string updated, DO NOT RUN SYSTEM UPDATE.)
Problems:
If you need to resync after a restart, you will have to repeat the process. Boo. But, it does seem to sync files and even kicks out some weird plain text files relating to server addresses. However, it eventually does sync successfully.
The client app looks a little bit nice and upgraded, but it is not fully functional. It will open your Dropbox folder. It will point to the Dropbox site, but it will not show the little contextual menu for settings. It also shows files in a strange order - most recent file (in the image below) and then older files. No idea.
Crazy.
After taking that screenshot below, it did prompt me to have them automatically uploaded to Dropbox. So, parts of it continue to work just fine, but that contextual link does not work.
Attachments
Is it supposed to sit there with the beachball for awhile after changing the system version?Do you all really want a solution?
It's hilarious. And stupid. And VERY temporary with lots of potential issues. I am sort of hesitant to put it on here because Dropbox folks may change their stuff to counteract it.
1. Change your Mac OS Version to 10.6.8 via these instructions:
https://justindaigle.com/blog/2010/02/tutorial-change-mac-os-x-system-version/
2. DO NOT RESTART.
3. Just run Dropbox again. Log in. Let the "newer" interface resync your files. It will take longer than normal. It did not write over any of my files and even uploaded the only file I added to my Dropbox account from another computer today.
4. Delete the Dropbox shortcut in the startup list in System Preferences -> Users. It will probably just log you back out again, so not particularly a big deal.
5. With Dropbox running, reverse your Mac OS version to 10.5.8 to prevent other weird issues from happening. (By the way, with your OS version string updated, DO NOT RUN SYSTEM UPDATE.)
Problems:
If you need to resync after a restart, you will have to repeat the process. Boo. But, it does seem to sync files and even kicks out some weird plain text files relating to server addresses. However, it eventually does sync successfully.
The client app looks a little bit nice and upgraded, but it is not fully functional. It will open your Dropbox folder. It will point to the Dropbox site, but it will not show the little contextual menu for settings. It also shows files in a strange order - most recent file (in the image below) and then older files. No idea.
Crazy.
After taking that screenshot below, it did prompt me to have them automatically uploaded to Dropbox. So, parts of it continue to work just fine, but that contextual link does not work.
Heck, no. I didn't close out all apps either when I did it. It should only query that file when booting up, launching an app, checking for updates, etc.. Otherwise, it's fairly static. Maybe another app is accessing it?
I think I have a number of issues stemming from three things.
1. I deleted everything Dropbox related off my Quicksilver last night and my PowerBook today.
2. I disconnected all of my PowerPC Macs from Dropbox's device list
3. I used an older version from my Mac Pro at work.
I did find a later version of Dropbox that runs on my PowerBook. Unfortunately, even after changing the system version number I still get the same error when logging in.
If you were successful with this then I might try scavenging from my iMac G5 tonight. It's the only PowerPC Mac I have not deleted anything Dropbox related on yet.
If this can be proven working the I can see the possibility of an Applescript to do a shell command, load Dropbox and then revert the version number when logging in.
Who knows.
Wow. Your situation is a bit more complex. This is the tricky thing - I don't know if Dropbox will let you install if you do unlink/delete the app. Maybe if you find the older version - 3.2.9 - and install from it?
I hadn't realized that Dropbox uses its own version of Python embedded within the app - version 2.7 - which is still pretty standard for Python-related work.
The good news is that option-clicking on Dropbox in the menubar still produces the standard menu, and everything seems to function normally. Also, after rebooting, I just kept Dropbox from opening, changed my OS version again, launched Dropbox, changed OS version back, and things are fine. It did not re-index or anything. It briefly showed a message of "Upgrading Dropbox" but then it stopped. Fascinating.