Hi, long time lurker of the recent Workspace/Dropbox/Box saga. After Workspace drama we started migrating to Box. So far so good, we have a big database (not going into details) and the cloud solution has always fit our needs. We are still looking to get a deal with Workspace (since we are a small startup we are trying to not waste resources), because we have some users in our org, but still the amount of space that the new policy reserves us is not right for us (even with future increases). Hence we also explored other solutions. Since Dropbox was the first choice for many we decided to wait and eventually chose Box. We started uploading files via rclone (the Box team told us to use Shuttle, but 20TB was not near enought for us. Also FTPS was a good solution, since it does not apply limits to uploads, but we experienced some disconnections and eventually had to restart many uploads with broken files) since the sync option looked right for us. We reached about 90% of our migration and Box applied the new upload policy of 1TB/mo per user. As I said we have some users, but still they count the previous uploaded files in the new limits hence none is able to upload anything via Box apps nor via FTPS neither via rclone. We keep getting the errors that everyone is experiencing. So we reached out to Box support, ticket was escalated to multiple levels and once again they told the aforementioned tips for migration. In the end they eventually wrote us this:
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Hi [redacted],
Thank you for responding.
I understand that you have questions regarding an email you received from Box about your account usage. I would be happy to assist here! Box has determined that your account has violated our Fair Use Policy under Section 3 “Product Limits”:
Download Bandwidth for Shared Links: Files downloaded from an open access shared link (applies to the owner of the file).
10GB per user per month for Individual plans
2TB per user per month for Box Business plans
Download/upload Ingress/Egress Bandwidth: Files uploaded and downloaded (applies to the user who uploads and/or downloads the file).1TB per user per month for both Box Business and Individual plans
In response to this violation we have placed a ratelimit upon your account that will be removed 30 days from its implementation. The implementation began the same day as the day you received the email. You have 3 options to resolve this rate limit:
You can reach out to [cancel@box.com] with the subject line of Fair Use Policy at Box and request a refund. You will receive a refund for the time remaining on your contract at Box and be provided with 30 days to download your content from Box before the account is deactivated.
You can stay within the bandwidth limit for 30 days upon which it will be lifted.
You can reach out to [sales@box.com] with the subject line of “Fair Use Policy at Box where they will guide you to purchase a plan that will comply with Box’s Fair Use Policy.
Thanks,
[redacted]
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As you can see it seems they do not want to listen to any request of lifting limits in order to finish the migration, even considering that the 1TB limit for all our users should be fine (more or less) for us in the future. At the moment we do not really know what to do and we cannot find any other solutions that could allow us to not waste precious resources for our business.
Hopefully this could be of help for some of you that are waiting for news on this front. Excuse my english and have a nice one.
This seems a bit weird, because I have also a problem now and it's for all users, which sounds more like I hit the API limit (can't even create a report).
I asked box.com about the fair use policy before I created my account and they confirmed me, that the "Bandwidth" limit is per file per user. So if you have a 5GB file, you need to download this 200+ times with a single user to trigger this.
So I would ask again, how you could have violated the fair use policy.
They introduced something new, 1TB bandwidth / month / user.
But I got restricted as well, even though I have only 986 GB on my share… so not even 1TB, and only used it to upload files. And now I cannot upload anything else, error 429
There's no link to this, so I think it's just a wrong interpretation of the fair use policy.
And 429 seems more like a API limit. This would match to someone on reddit who said that rclone API queries now count for API limit. Also the 1TB would be per user, but nearly everyone post I saw claims that all users in the account are blocked.
But at the end nothing really fits total.
I also have the problem that I can't even create a report, because the file can't be created.
But I can create folders and text documents in the web gui, but no file upload.
I have created my own app with client id, and got limited on the first day, as it came to error 429 and I guess rclone started to push every failed file again and again, multiplied the size of the data by minimum 3 times.
And this started in the night to the 1st of September. And since that I cannot do anything, and have only 986 GB (not even 1TB) data on my box space. Very strange.
at least box should provide clear information and options how to resolve this blocker. - even if the only option would be to purchase additional API add-ons or upgrade to an enterprise subscription (also read that even accounts with enterprise plan got limited).
I am way under 1TB traffic (and also under 1TB used storage) because i created my account just recently, but i have
the same symptoms with rclone and box (+chunker+encryption).
I cannot upload files anymore, the transfer constantly starts new.
Somehow it looks like they've borked rclone-usage on purpose.
I couple days ago had contact with box support and they guaranteed me that they can accomodate for all my space needs and i also mentioned migration of >100TB files.
With those mentioned limitations my data-migration would take 3 years.
This is after Dropbox and Google now the third stock-company that is promising things they cannot fullfill.
Quite unprofessional i would say...
Yeah, this is so bad. I created multiple tickets and the support is not helpful. First they said they have no idea, then I should send them screenshots, logs, etc. Then they said it's the fair use bandwith limit. After asking them why it's for all users and that they said me before it's per file, they told me, oh yeah, it's the API limit. But they couldn't give me any API numbers or help why it just stopped working, they just said, yeah, we send you an email with details (which was just the "We have detected a significant increase in uploaded content to your account xxxxx that exceeds the bandwidth limitations" mail).
And even no reports where possible.
Now just from one day to another (without waiting a month) it just works, but I have no idea why.
This is really bad customer support
And they just say, "if you unhappy, just mail cancel@box... and ask for a refund for the time the subscription lasts. Which seems like they want to get rid of us.
Download works.
Didn't checked the reporting until now, I requested one for 09-01, as on that day I got blocked... and since that I tried to upload I guess 2-3x only.
