my also does not connect permanently, but it does connect to the cloud often every now and then.
(under maintenance, u should be able to see 'Latest update received:*date and time*' below 'Connection:')
thats how it has been working for me at least from since the last minor version update.
i tested filerep under these conditions and it seems to me it is working (i do get filerep warning on low prevalence files)