After v.33.0.3 upgrade: Apache reports "autoindex:error"; "File sequence directory exists but is not writable"

Support intro

Sorry to hear you’re facing problems. :slightly_frowning_face:

The community help forum (help.nextcloud.com) is for home and non-enterprise users. Support is provided by other community members on a best effort / “as available” basis. All of those responding are volunteering their time to help you.

If you’re using Nextcloud in a business/critical setting, paid and SLA-based support services can be accessed via portal.nextcloud.com where Nextcloud engineers can help ensure your business keeps running smoothly.

Getting help

In order to help you as efficiently (and quickly!) as possible, please fill in as much of the below requested information as you can.

Before clicking submit: Please check if your query is already addressed via the following resources:

(Utilizing these existing resources is typically faster. It also helps reduce the load on our generous volunteers while elevating the signal to noise ratio of the forums otherwise arising from the same queries being posted repeatedly).

Some or all of the below information will be requested if it isn’t supplied; for fastest response please provide as much as you can. :heart:

The Basics

  • Nextcloud Server version (e.g., 29.x.x):
    • 33.0.3
  • Operating system and version (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04):
    • FreeBSD 14.4
  • Web server and version (e.g, Apache 2.4.25):
    • Apache 2.4
  • Reverse proxy and version _(e.g. nginx 1.27.2)
    • NA
  • PHP version (e.g, 8.3):
    • 8.3
  • Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Yes / No):
    • Yes
  • When did this problem seem to first start?
    • When attempting to access the admin console immediately after successfully upgrading to v. 33.0.3
  • Installation method (e.g. AlO, NCP, Bare Metal/Archive, etc.)
    • Command line
  • Are you using CloudfIare, mod_security, or similar? (Yes / No)
    • No

Summary of the issue you are facing:

“Internal Server Error” upon attempting to access the admin console after successfully upgrading to v. 33.0.3. Apache HTTP Server reports “autoindex:error”.

Error in nextcloud.log: “File sequence directory exists but is not writable.”

Steps to replicate it (hint: details matter!):

  1. Upgrade to Nextcloud 33.0.3 using CLI.

  2. Upgrade command reports “Update successful”.

  3. Turn off maintenance mode.

  4. In a browser go to the URL of the installation (e.g., domain.com/nextcloud).

  5. The site reports an Internal Server Error.

Log entries

Nextcloud

Please provide the log entries from your Nextcloud log that are generated during the time of problem (via the Copy raw option from Administration settings->Logging screen or from your nextcloud.log located in your data directory). Feel free to use a pastebin/gist service if necessary.

Entries from nextcloud.log with timestamps that coincided with the HTTP request that resulted in the error:

https://bin.disroot.org/?3c8006506acd572c#GJz6VjAMAhPCGr2Y72aNrYV2zPxobUiEw3t8a4TdHiKw

{"Exception":"Exception","Message":"File sequence directory exists but is not writable","Code":0,"Trace":[{"file":"/path/to/nextcloud/lib/private/Snowflake/FileSequence.php","line":32,"function":"ensureWorkdirExists","class":"OC\\Snowflake\\FileSequence","type":"->","args":[]}

Web Browser

If the problem is related to the Web interface, open your browser inspector Console and Network tabs while refreshing (reloading) and reproducing the problem. Provide any relevant output/errors here that appear.

NA

PASTE

Web server / Reverse Proxy

The output of your Apache/nginx/system log in /var/log/____:

Apache error log—the HTTP request that resulted in the error was made immediately after rotating the log:

[Wed May 27 20:00:11.329633 2026] [autoindex:error] [pid 89502:tid 42608754556944] [client 209.6.113.125:0] AH01276: Cannot serve directory /path/to/nextcloud: No matching DirectoryIndex (none) found, and server-generated directory index forbidden by Options directive

Configuration

Nextcloud

The output of occ config:list system or similar is best, but, if not possible, the contents of your config.php file from /path/to/nextcloud is fine (make sure to remove any identifiable information!):

config.php:

<?php
$CONFIG = array (
  'instanceid' => 'SCRUBBED',
  'passwordsalt' => 'SCRUBBED',
  'secret' => 'SCRUBBED',
  'appstoreenabled' => false,
  'config_is_read_only' => false,
  'trusted_domains' =>
  array (
    0 => 'domain.com',
  ),
  'trusted_proxies' =>
  array (
    0 => '192.168.0.0/16',
  ),
  'datadirectory' => '/path/to/data',
  'tempdirectory' => '/tmp/nextcloudtemp',
  'log_type' => 'file',
  'logfile' => '/path/to/data/nextcloud.log',
  'logfilemode' => 432,
  'loglevel' => 2,
  'log.condition' =>
  array (
    'apps' =>
    array (
      0 => 'admin_audit',
    ),
  ),
  'log_rotate_size' => 10485760,
  'debug' => false,
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '33.0.3.2',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => 'https://domain.com/nextcloud',
  'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/nextcloud',
  'dbname' => 'mydb',
  'dbhost' => 'mydbhost',
  'dbport' => 'mydbport',
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'mysql.utf8mb4' => true,
  'dbuser' => 'mydbuser',
  'dbpassword' => 'mydbpassword',
  'installed' => true,
  'mail_smtpmode' => 'sendmail',
  'mail_sendmailmode' => 'smtp',
  'mail_smtpdebug' => false,
  'mail_smtpauthtype' => 'LOGIN',
  'mail_smtphost' => '127.0.0.1',
  'mail_smtpport' => '25',
  'mail_smtptimeout' => 10,
  'trashbin_retention_obligation' => 'auto, 30',
  'twofactor_enforced' => 'true',
  'twofactor_enforced_groups' =>
  array (
    0 => 'group0',
    1 => 'group1',
  ),
  'twofactor_enforced_excluded_groups' =>
  array (
  ),
  'maintenance' => false,
  'has_rebuilt_cache' => true,
  'theme' => '',
  'mail_from_address' => 'adminuser',
  'mail_domain' => 'domain.com',
);

Apps

The output of occ app:list (if possible).

Enabled:
- activity: 6.0.0
- admin_audit: 1.23.0
- app_api: 33.0.0
- bookmarks: 16.1.4
- bruteforcesettings: 6.0.0
- calendar: 6.4.2
- circles: 33.0.0
- cloud_federation_api: 1.17.0
- comments: 1.23.0
- contacts: 8.5.1
- contactsinteraction: 1.14.1
- dashboard: 7.13.0
- dav: 1.36.0
- federatedfilesharing: 1.23.0
- federation: 1.23.0
- files: 2.5.0
- files_downloadlimit: 5.1.0
- files_pdfviewer: 6.0.0
- files_reminders: 1.6.0
- files_sharing: 1.25.2
- files_trashbin: 1.23.0
- files_versions: 1.26.0
- firstrunwizard: 6.0.0
- logreader: 6.0.0
- lookup_server_connector: 1.21.0
- news: 28.4.1
- nextcloud_announcements: 5.0.0
- notes: 5.0.0
- notifications: 6.0.0
- oauth2: 1.21.0
- password_policy: 5.0.0
- photos: 6.0.0
- privacy: 5.0.0
- profile: 1.2.0
- provisioning_api: 1.23.0
- qownnotesapi: 26.2.2
- recommendations: 6.0.0
- related_resources: 4.0.0
- serverinfo: 5.0.0
- settings: 1.16.0
- sharebymail: 1.23.0
- support: 5.0.0
- survey_client: 5.0.0
- suspicious_login: 11.0.0
- systemtags: 1.23.0
- tasks: 0.17.1
- text: 7.0.1
- theming: 2.8.0
- twofactor_backupcodes: 1.22.0
- twofactor_totp: 15.0.0
- updatenotification: 1.23.0
- user_status: 1.13.0
- viewer: 6.0.0
- weather_status: 1.13.0
- webhook_listeners: 1.5.0
- workflowengine: 2.15.0
Disabled:
- encryption: 2.21.0
- files_external: 1.25.1
- testing: 1.23.0
- twofactor_nextcloud_notification: 7.0.0 (installed 2.3.0)
- user_ldap: 1.24.0

Tips for increasing the likelihood of a response

  • Use the preformatted text formatting option in the editor for all log entries and configuration output.
  • If screenshots are useful, feel free to include them.
    • If possible, also include key error output in text form so it can be searched for.
  • Try to edit log output only minimally (if at all) so that it can be ran through analyzers / formatters by those trying to help you.

Are you certain upgrading to v33.0.3 is the only change? No PHP, OS, or web server/Apache changes/upgrades?

It’s expected that auto-indexing won’t work; but that’s because Nextcloud’s entrypoint should be loaded.

The most suspicious part of your output is this:

No matching DirectoryIndex (none) found

That suggests the DirectoryIndex value isn’t getting populated. Nextcloud comes with an .htaccess for Apache. It’s possible to prevent it from being used in your web server configuration, but that wouldn’t be triggered by just upgrading Nextcloud itself.

None of that has changed since I upgraded to v.32.0.9, all was well after that upgrade. I upgraded to v.33.0.3 about a week later and ran into this issue immediately.

I cannot directly edit Apache config files except for the .htaccess files under the web root. My custom directives in those files:

Based on your earlier Nextcloud log this part:

File sequence directory exists but is not writable

Sounds like an issue with your Snowflake IDs in v33.

Do you have multiple installations? Or maybe somehow ran the Updater as a different user than your web/PHP user?

I suspected that.

I did encounter that bug during the upgrade. Following the solution in this comment, I gave g+w permission to the /tmp/nextcloudtemp/sfi_file_sequence_<instance> directory (which was empty). I reran the upgrade after that and it reported success.

About my installation (I only have one):

  • I always upgrade using the CLI (the occ command) through SSH. I can only run it as the SSH user, I cannot switch to the web user.
  • My installation directories/files are owned by <ssh_user>:<web_group>; directory perms 750, file perms 640.
  • I usually keep my config dirctory and config.php read-only for group (with the corresponding config setting set to true). However, they are currently g+w, following the suggestion in the aforementioned comment.

Is there anything else I need to do to work around the issue with Snowflake IDs?