Dropbox link not working with URL import

Help & Support
1

Hello,

I am new in Network Canvas and have a naive issue I couldn’t resolve on my own. I have created a protocole and saved on my personal computer. Then, I have uploaded the file on my personal dropbox and made it publicly available via a link.

When I copy the link in the Interviewer interface via the URL download, I have the following error message :

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open ‘/Users/jXXX/Library/Application Support/Network Canvas Interviewer/protocols/3aa418d3-26fe-49a1-8eca-8bfdc8d176d1/protocol.json’

I might do a very simple mistake but haven’t found a way to resolve it thus far.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Guillaume

2

Hello Guillaume!

Sorry to hear about the trouble you are having. This could be a bug in the software.

Do you mind sharing the URL with me for your protocol? If it is sensitive, you can email it to joshua@northwestern.edu.

Once I have the URL I can take a look and get back to you.

Sorry again for the issue!

3

I was able to work out the issue after Guillaume sent the link to the protocol privately.

For anyone who comes across this, Dropbox URLs can be difficult because by default they do not download the file directly. Instead, they show a web page which allows the download to be triggered.

To make dropbox instead immediately give you the file, you have to edit the URL slightly. Full details of this process can be found here: How to generate a Dropox direct download link | Zapier

To summarise the important part:

  1. Paste your link somewhere you can edit it (another browser tab works fine). You should have a link that looks something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/svmal51kp1qbf0rhnhhq6/Wallpaper.jpeg?rlkey=ubr8jiwyu90w1gzcfowxvx8a3&dl=0.
  2. Replace dl=0 with dl=1 in the query parameters of the URL. For example, https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/svmal51kp1qbf0rhnhhq6/Wallpaper.jpeg?rlkey=ubr8jiwyu90w1gzcfowxvx8a3&dl=1.
  3. Share the link as you normally would.

This trick will enable Interviewer to import the file correctly.

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