08 July 2016

Akeeba Backup for Joomla 5.1.2, Akeeba Backup for WordPress 1.9.2, Akeeba Solo 1.9.2 and the respective later versions no longer support integration with the Dropbox API version 1. You will need to do some manual changes to your backup profiles to use the Dropbox API version 2 integration we have made available since November 2015.

 

Is Dropbox still supported?

Yes, Dropbox is fully supported by our backup software. You do, however, need to make manual changes in your backup profiles because of changes in the API made by Dropbox itself.

What changes were made in Akeeba Backup and Akeeba Solo?

We have removed integration with the Dropbox v1 API because Dropbox itself announced it is deprecated and will be turned off by June 28th, 2017. We chose to remove support for the deprecated API now to make sure that all of our clients will be ready for Dropbox' deprecation next year. If you think that's an overkill please keep in mind that we added Dropbox v2 support in November 2015 with the documentation note that it's the recommended version and that the v1 API may stop working at any point.

Why are changes necessary?

Unfortunately, Dropbox' v1 and v2 APIs are very different and there is no way to have an automatic migration from v1 to v2. The access tokens used in the two API versions are and work different. This means that by upgrading to a new version of Akeeba Backup / Solo your backup profiles which were using the deprecated Dropbox v1 API integration are no longer linked to a post-processing engine and produce errors.

What can I do to continue backing up to Dropbox?

Luckily there's a very simple process you have to follow once on every site and backup profile you want to (re)link to Dropbox.

THIS PROCESS ONLY NEEDS TO TAKE PLACE ONCE PER BACKUP PROFILE AND SITE!

  • Go to your Akeeba Backup / Solo main page.
  • Select the backup profile you want to relink.
  • Click on Configuration.
  • In the Post-processing Engine dropdown select “Upload to Dropbox (v2 API)”
  • Click on “Configure” next to it.
  • Click on the “Authentication – Step 1” button.
  • You may have to log in to Dropbox if you are not already logged in. Also, if you had not authorized another Akeeba Backup or Akeeba Solo installation to use Dropbox you may see a confirmation about it. If you are already logged in and have authorized our software to use Dropbox you will not see any of that.
  • You then see a page with the big title “Dropbox Authentication is almost complete”. Click on the blue “Complete Dropbox authentication” button below it.
  • Now you're back to Akeeba Backup / Solo. Click on Save & Close to complete the setup.

Unlike the Dropbox v1 API you must not copy the token from one profile / site to another. Instead, repeat the process above. Dropbox API v2 produces a new token every time you link a new backup profile or site to Dropbox without revoking the previous one.

What about older versions of Akeeba Backup and Akeeba Solo?

Please check the Compatibility page first and make sure you're using the latest available version for your CMS and PHP version combination.

If you are using any version of Akeeba Backup for WordPress; or any version of Akeeba Solo; or Akeeba Backup for Joomla versions 4.7.x or 5.x: you can simply follow the instructions above to migrate to Dropbox v2 API.

If you are using Akeeba Backup 3.4.6 you only have access to the old Dropbox API v1 integration. This will work until June 27th, 2017. After that time Dropbox will turn off the old v1 API and automatic transfers to Dropbox will fail. The only reason to stick with such an ancient Akeeba Backup release is having a really old Joomla! and/or PHP version that we've stopped supporting years ago. As we've said before, we can no longer offer support for these versions of Joomla and PHP. You're long overdue for a site update, now it's the time to do it.

If you are using an even older version of Akeeba Backup your site is running software from 2010 or earlier. You were unable to use the Dropbox integration since a few years ago anyway. It's time to rebuild your site. Really.

Final comments

Again, we apologize for having to go through this process but this is due to changes made on Dropbox' side. On the upside, the Dropbox API v2 is much more stable, allows for bigger uploads and lets us perform “chunk uploads”, a technique which allows us to transfer very large backup archives without you having to set up small part sizes. You can now safely use a Part Size for Split Archives up to 2047 Mb without any upload worries.