Create Dropbox Links from Alfred is broken

[Aadako]

Anyone got a working Dropbox link workflow? The one I've been using has broken and all the others seem broken. But this seems like a thing most Alfred users would use all the time and I don't see any posts about it here, so maybe it's just me?

 

This is the workflow I had been using

https://ryanmo.co/2017/05/16/create-dropbox-links-from-alfred/

 

Now I get the error "No module named idna" ... I tried manually installing idna but that doesn't help.

 

Ryan, the author, doesn't post his contact info on his blog so I'm not sure how to contact him. Any help would be much appreciated!

[vitor]

47 minutes ago, Aadako said:

But this seems like a thing most Alfred users would use all the time

 

I’d bet this action is way less common than you think. Most users don’t need to send files to others that often. When they do, many opt for an alternative other than consuming space on Dropbox indefinitely.

 

49 minutes ago, Aadako said:

so maybe it's just me?

 

It might be, but it might also be that something on Dropbox’s API has changed and that broke the Workflows that were using it. The Worklfow you linked to is a few years old and Dropbox has been making changes recently, so that’s a possibility.

 

52 minutes ago, Aadako said:

Ryan, the author, doesn't post his contact info on his blog

51 minutes ago, Aadako said:

and all the others seem broken.

 

Have you tried contacting any of the others? Linking to them here at the very least might help, as we might recognise an author.

[Aadako]

 

Thanks Vitor, here are the links below.

 

In my case I want to share the dropbox links to myself so I can put them in cells in Google Sheets

 

 

 

http://www.packal.org/workflow/copy-dropbox-link

 

[skotzko]

@Aadako I've had the same issue many times. I tried to fix the same workflow you linked to, but even after trying the various things that *should* have fixed it, ran out of time. 

 

I went and fixed the original Dropbox workflow—which I think Ryan forked from—which is a much simpler codebase. I submitted the change as a pull request to original author, but you can get the working version in the PR here. That original workflow doesn't have the option for expiring 7 day links, but it does the job for the basic need which you and I share of quickly getting Dropbox file links for our own use.

 

If you want to just edit it yourself, find the file `register-db-auth-token.sh` in the workflow folder of Uri Cohen's "Copy Dropbox Link" workflow. On line 2, change the

 

grep "HTTP/1.1"

 

part of the line to

 

grep "HTTP/2"

 

then save it and you should be all set.

Edited October 6, 2022 by skotzko

[skotzko]

As a follow up, it turns out the fix above isn't durable. While it does work, it will stop working after ~4 hours. This is due to an API change that Dropbox made so that access tokens are short-lived, and have to be regularly renewed. I haven't found a way to make a "valid until revoked" token. Without a token like that, a more complicated workflow that does proper OAuth and token refreshing is required. This one looks promising, but is still throwing errors that I haven't gotten to the bottom of yet.

Edited October 7, 2022 by skotzko