iCam and Dropbox with iPhone

[Gary645]

I have followed the instructions for saving photos to the iPhone using DropBox but when I try to view the images on the iPhone I get the message "Unable to view file." It seems like DropBox sees the folder but not the images in the folder. Can anyone help?

[OUAnthony]

Are you using the DropBox app on your phone?

[Gary645]

Yes

[OUAnthony]

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Dropbox app? It seems like I had that issue a long time ago...but I can't remember if/how I resolved it. Have you tried using Safari to browse your Dropbox account on your phone?

[Gary645]

I removed Dropbox from my iPhone - launched iCam and everything worked fine - I could see my computer's iSight images on iCam on the iPhone. I reinstalled Dropbox on the iPhone and restarted iCam. Everything shows up in DropBox like it is supposed to, but the same problem occurs. I have the iCam folder with the long name as an alias in the DropBox folder on the computer. Inside the iCam folder are additional folders which contain .jpg images for the particular time event. Does it sound like I've got this set up properly? I still get the message "unable to view file." I'm not sure how to use Safari to browse my Dropbox account on the iPhone.
I appreciate your staying with me on this - I had used Periscope in the past but it doesn't work with Lion. Once I found iCam I deleted Periscope and the Snow Leopard partition on my computer.

[OUAnthony]

Unfortunately, I can't really help you much because I'm not a Mac user. I think there's a significant difference between setting up Dropbox/iCam in Windows than in Mac. With Dropbox installed on your phone, iCam still works, right? In other words, you can see your cameras and motion events, right? Your only issue is with seeing the motion event pictures in the Dropbox app? If so, have you tried viewing an older motion event to see if you have the same issue? If only viewing brand new events, it could be that Dropbox can't display it immediately because it takes time to sync the files.

[Gary645]

I am unable to view any events, old or new --- I am unable to see what is inside the folder which contains the motion events.

[OUAnthony]

In iCam or only in the Dropbox app?

[Gary645]

iCam individual images are stored in event folders, in a folder, on my iMac and I can view the .jpg images on my iMac with no problem. I tried to attach a screen shot of the path to the images, but I apparently cannot attach a document here. So, the path is as follows.
* user
* user documents
* folder called "iCam Photos"
* folder called "c5c047e2defdfdbcafe2ea951c8f9290f03c6d08" (this is the folder with an alias in Dropbox on the iMac)
* folder called "2012-05-09_14.57.45"
     inside this folder are eleven .jpg images
In the Dropbox folder on the iPhone I can see the folder with the long name beginning with "c5c04---" - but I cannot get into that folder to see the folders with the .jpg images.
Thanks again for staying with me on this - others have made this work so I should be able to do the same.

[OUAnthony]

You know that you can see the captured motion events using the iCam app, right? When viewing one camera in iCam, tap once on the screen to bring up the motion events button in the top, right corner. Then tap on motion events and you can view the folders and their contents. I would recommend just making sure that the images are actually being backed up to Dropbox by logging in to dropbox.com from your Internet browser on your computer. As long as the pictures are showing up at dropbox.com, you should have everything you need...a way to view the motion events on your phone (using iCam) and an off-site backup of your motion events (at dropbox.com). Maybe a future update of your phone's iOS and/or an update to the Dropbox app will fix your issue.

[Stefan]

Dropbox doesn't seem to process the aliases correctly, and just treats them as files, not links to files or folders. What I did was move my motion events folder into my Dropbox folder, changing the folder in the iCamSource so that the new motion events were saved in the new location.

[Gary645]

Wonderful - that did it - thanks for staying with me on this.

[Stefan]

Excellent news.