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Dropbox on PPC Sorbet

mac57mac57

mac57mac57

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 2, 2024
822
512
Myrtle Beach, SC
Hi, I came across a Dropbox app in the PPCAppStore, so I downloaded it and tried it - I make extensive use of Dropbox, and it would be just be too good to be true to have such an app work. I had to try it.

It is not too successful, reporting:

Dropbox Message.jpg

... and that is all. My Quad is most definitely on the net, via both WiFi and Ethernet.

Does anyone know what Dropbox is looking for that would cause it to emit this message, or perhaps any other workarounds, or perhaps even some other program entirely that provided access to Dropbox.

Thanks!
 
mac57mac57 said:
Hi, I came across a Dropbox app in the PPCAppStore, so I downloaded it and tried it - I make extensive use of Dropbox, and it would be just be too good to be true to have such an app work. I had to try it.

It is not too successful, reporting:

View attachment 2542694
... and that is all. My Quad is most definitely on the net, via both WiFi and Ethernet.

Does anyone know what Dropbox is looking for that would cause it to emit this message, or perhaps any other workarounds, or perhaps even some other program entirely that provided access to Dropbox.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
It could be any number of things, but I'd advise you not to get hopes up.

For about two years after Dropbox dropped support for PowerPC, we had a dev who was able to reverse engineer the app and keep things working. Then the difficulties just got more and more difficult and as this was not a full time job for them, that was it.

All you can really do is share the Dropbox folder (or your root drive) from a Mac or PC that IS capable of using Dropbox.

But for PowerPC. Sadly, it's long done.

 
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mac57mac57 said:
Hi, I came across a Dropbox app in the PPCAppStore, so I downloaded it and tried it - I make extensive use of Dropbox, and it would be just be too good to be true to have such an app work. I had to try it.

It is not too successful, reporting:

View attachment 2542694
... and that is all. My Quad is most definitely on the net, via both WiFi and Ethernet.

Does anyone know what Dropbox is looking for that would cause it to emit this message, or perhaps any other workarounds, or perhaps even some other program entirely that provided access to Dropbox.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Fileferry should work on 10.5.8 (it does with at least some supported websites on 10.4.11), but you do need PowerPC ports and it will be a pain to set up, though less so on a Quad
 
It will be really nice not to use misleading titles.
Is the issue specific to “Sorbet” mod of 10.5.8? No. Is the issue specific to any 10.5.8? No. Is the issue specific to any macOS on powerpc? No.

Issues which are meant to be asking help are rather to have meaningful titles, that increases likelihood of getting meaningful responses.

P. S. Also this unasked-for product placement in every post does not spark joy. Imagine I will start sticking “on Snow Leopard PowerPC” into every post which has nothing specific to do with 10.6 on powerpc, just because that is a system of my choice on this arch.
 
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Well @barracuda156, I must respectfully disagree with you.

I believe that the title of the post in question is quite descriptive and is in no way misleading.

The title succinctly indicates to the reader the application being posted about (Dropbox), the software environment it is being run in (Sorbet) and the hardware architecture on which it is being run (PPC). Even the word "on" is important, connecting the app (Dropbox) with the environment (Sorbet on PPC). Every word of the title is descriptive and directly relevant.

The mention of "Sorbet" is not product placement - it is the simple fact of the software environment I run on my G5s. Writing "Sorbet" is a nicely compact and very well understood (in these forums) way of writing "Mac OX X 10.5.9 Sorbet Leopard".
 
mac57mac57 said:
Well @barracuda156, I must respectfully disagree with you.

I believe that the title of the post in question is quite descriptive and is in no way misleading.

The title succinctly indicates to the reader the application being posted about (Dropbox), the software environment it is being run in (Sorbet) and the hardware architecture on which it is being run (PPC). Even the word "on" is important, connecting the app (Dropbox) with the environment (Sorbet on PPC). Every word of the title is descriptive and directly relevant.

The mention of "Sorbet" is not product placement - it is the simple fact of the software environment I run on my G5s. Writing "Sorbet" is a nicely compact and very well understood (in these forums) way of writing "Mac OX X 10.5.9 Sorbet Leopard".
Click to expand...

So you assert that the issue is specific to “Sorbet” Leopard, and on a normal 10.5.8 (powerpc or x86) and 10.6.8 (powerpc or x86) the outcome is different, and the app works?

I did not say the title is a false statement – I totally believe it is factual. Yet, it is misleading, since given details are irrelevant.

P. S. Alternatively, assume for the sake of argument that I have a solution for Dropbox app to work on 10.5.8. Do you want me to stay away from the discussion, since the solution works on my system, which is 10.5.8 release, and, going by the topic title, is irrelevant?
 
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Well @barracuda156, continuing this discussion...

I am not asserting anything. I am asking questions and providing relevant details for the question. I did run the Dropbox app, it was run under Sorbet Leopard and all of that software ran on PPC. These are simple facts, not assertions of any causality.

Now as to your hypothetical "sake of argument" paragraph, you do yourself a disservice. You are a denizen of these forums. You know that 10.5.8 and Sorbet are very closely related, and that any solution that works on 10.5.8 is likely to work on 10.5.9... so you know all too well that this would be a solution of interest.
 
mac57mac57 said:
These are simple facts, not assertions of any causality.
Click to expand...

Could be worth specifying a model of Mac which this was tried on, default locale, network configuration in place etc.

mac57mac57 said:
you do yourself a disservice
Click to expand...

Don’t really get how I hurt myself if I assume that the topic title accurately reflects the problem and avoid spending time on providing a presumably unneeded solution (if the question specifies a modification of 10.5 and not 10.5, it is logical to assume that the issue is specific to the mod), but ok, at this point I am out of arguments.
 
Certificate of Excellence said:
@Dronecatcher uses a free swissdisk online drive to access his stuff on his PPC boxes back to os9 using mac connect on OSX and Goliath on os9. Its not dropbox but is a functional alternative.
Click to expand...
The last time I tried SwissDisk in OS9 it wouldn't connect - either the service was down or more likely it's no longer compatible.

As of today (03/09/25) Goliath and Finder/WebDAV still connect to SwissDisk on Tiger.

Last time I was dabbling, after SwissDisk failed, I used myDrive - which was even working on Windows 98!

@mac57mac57 FYI after you messaged me.

​

 
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@Dronecatcher, I checked out the myDrive site, and it sounds interesting. There is a large suite of tools there hovever. Which ones did you try, and find to work? Presumably the WebDAV tools, or were there more? Thanks.
 
Hmmm... myDrive now looks like an open source server that you can download and install on your own compute capacity to provide a storage server, but it doesn't look like a cloud server of and by itself.

SwissDrive seems more promising. I have set it up and will see if it works. After registering for a basic free account (to test if it works with Goliath) it tells me that I have to wait for a half hour or so, after which it will send an email to me telling me that my account is ready.

So, I will wait until then and try it out when I get the email. Fingers and toes crossed!
 
Dronecatcher said:
As of today (03/09/25) Goliath and Finder/WebDAV still connect to SwissDisk on Tiger.
Click to expand...

Hi @Dronecatcher, I created a SwissDisk account and waited until they emailed me that it was ready. Then I tried various ways of connecting to it from Goliath under Sorbet Leopard. Nothing seems to work. I tried putting the following into the Goliath URL box:

swissdisk.com
webdav.swissdisk.com

Neither worked, although the last of the two didn't fail explicitly. Instead, I got a spinning gear progress wheel inside the app that simply never stops.

Can you respond back here with what exactly you typed into the Goliath URL box to get it to connect to SwissDisk?

Thanks!
 
Dronecatcher said:
For SwissDisk, URL is:


**** being your user name


I just tried myDrive in Goliath and it wouldn’t connect, however through Finder’s Connect To Server function, the URL is:

Click to expand...

I googled what open-source apps have WebDAV support now, and bumped into this one: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l/tree/master

Looks like this can work. I can try making a port tomorrow. Supposed to be portable, most of dependencies are available, C++17, wxGTK.
 
Dronecatcher said:
For SwissDisk, URL is:

https://disk.swissdisk.com/****
**** being your user name
Click to expand...

Thanks @Dronecatcher, it worked! Using Goliath 1.0.1 on my Sorbet Leopard Power Mac G5 Quad, I was able to login to the SwissDisk account I created a day or so ago. This is an excellent result, and I thank you again for the help! This is cloud storage accessible from Sorbet Leopard, which is wonderful!

It gets better though! The same URL, put into Finder's "Connect To Server" dialog works perfectly too, and from both Sorbet Leopard on my Power Mac G5 Quad and from macOS Monterey on my Mac Studio! So, we now have not just cloud storage for the Power Mac G5 but also shared cloud storage between that Power Mac G5 and my Mac Studio. This is even better!
 
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Dronecatcher said:
For SwissDisk, URL is:


**** being your user name
Click to expand...

Doesn’t seem to work correctly even from the modern macOS. Tried to upload a dmg which I need to transfer now twice from arm64 Mac, first attempt is uploaded 168% (!) and kept going, after which I interrupted it, on the second attempt reported successful upload, but the file did not show up online at all.
 
barracuda156 said:
Doesn’t seem to work correctly even from the modern macOS. Tried to upload a dmg which I need to transfer now twice from arm64 Mac, first attempt is uploaded 168% (!) and kept going, after which I interrupted it, on the second attempt reported successful upload, but the file did not show up online at all.
Click to expand...
I've never used it to transfer huge files.

Tested this morning between my i5 iMac running El Capitan and my Powerbook on Tiger - a 21Mb video worked fine.
 
Dronecatcher said:
Looks a bit *Commander - which makes sense as I think that's always been WebDAV compliant.
Click to expand...

The thing got wild number of dependencies for its full build. Took me 2.5 hrs to build AWS SDK, on the Quad LOL
But I want it to have S3 support. Let’s see, hopefully the app itself builds or is fixable.
 
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