Ubuntu – Dropbox doesn’t autostart in 12.04

Click on the dropbox icon on the top of your screen, hit "preferences" and tick the button where it says "Start dropbox on system startup" in the "general" tab.

If this doesn't work do it command line way :)

Create /etc/init.d/dropbox

#!/bin/sh
#dropbox service
DROPBOX_USERS="user1 user2"

DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropbox

start() {
   echo "Starting dropbox..."
   for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
       HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $dbuser | cut -d: -f6`
       if [ -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON ]; then
           HOME="$HOMEDIR" start-stop-daemon -b -o -c $dbuser -S -u $dbuser -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON
       fi
   done
}

stop() {
   echo "Stopping dropbox..."
   for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
       HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $dbuser | cut -d: -f6`
       if [ -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON ]; then
           start-stop-daemon -o -c $dbuser -K -u $dbuser -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON
       fi
   done
}

status() {
   for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
       dbpid=`pgrep -u $dbuser dropbox`
       if [ -z $dbpid ] ; then
           echo "dropboxd for USER $dbuser: not running."
       else
           echo "dropboxd for USER $dbuser: running (pid $dbpid)"
       fi
   done
}

case "$1" in

   start)
       start
       ;;
   stop)
       stop
       ;;
   restart|reload|force-reload)
       stop
       start
       ;;
   status)
       status
       ;;
   *)
       echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/dropbox {start|stop|reload|force-reload|restart|status}"
       exit 1

esac

exit 0

Make sure to change line 3 to your computer username not the dropbox user DROPBOX_USERS="user1 user2"

and on line 5 make sure you got the right execute file in dropbox-dist

'DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropbox'

mine had to be DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

Then make the script executable and add it to the system startup:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/dropbox 
sudo update-rc.d dropbox defaults

you can test the script by writing

sudo /etc/init.d/dropbox start

If Dropbox is set to not run on log in (intentionally or not), or the checbox does not work as intended, it will remove the .desktop file you, or Startup Applications created, on next login. Subsequently, it will disappear from the list of startup applications.

Simply rename the file ~/.config/autostart/dropbox.desktop to (e.g.) start_dropbox.desktop after it is created, and Dropbox will not recognize it as his, and leave the file alone.