Ubuntu – When starting Dropbox IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

14.04dropbox

I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 and downloaded Dropbox from Nautilus, but it will not start. When I enter dropbox start into the command line it returns this error.

IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied:
/var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-3.6.6/futures-2.1.3-py2.7.egg/EGG-INFO/top_level.txt

I've tried entering sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist
which I read fixed an error with the recent release but it didn't change anything.

Best Answer

I have the exact same problem! Just made a new Ubuntu 14.02 installation today. Updated and upgraded the full system to latest patches. Then I installed Dropbox via:

sudo apt-get install nautilus-dropbox

Got the following error message:

IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: /var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-3.6.6/futures-2.1.3-py2.7.egg/EGG-INFO/top_level.txt

Fixed the problem by:

sudo apt-get remove --purge nautilus-dropbox

And then download and install Dropbox manually. https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx