Android auto-upload leads to two "Camera" folders with duplicate files being uploaded

📱 Desktop & mobile clients 🤖 Android
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1

The Basics

  • Nextcloud Server version (e.g., 29.x.x):
    • 33.0.2
  • Operating system and version (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04):
    • Linux 6.19.10+deb13-amd64
  • Web server and version (e.g, Apache 2.4.25):
    • Apache 2.4.66
  • Reverse proxy and version _(e.g. nginx 1.27.2)
    • Tailscale
  • PHP version (e.g, 8.3):
    • Unknown
  • Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Yes / No):
    • No
  • When did this problem seem to first start?
    • After first installing Nextcloud and setting up auto upload
  • Installation method (e.g. AlO, NCP, Bare Metal/Archive, etc.)
    • AIO Docker
  • Are you using CloudfIare, mod_security, or similar? (Yes / No)
    • No

Summary of the issue you are facing:

I want to auto upload all of my photos from my Android phone onto my Nextcloud installation on my NAS, but doing so causes two different “Camera” folders (/InstantUpload/Camera & /InstantUpload/DCIM/Camera) with the exact same files in both folders to be uploaded, effectively taking up twice as much space on my NAS for no reason.

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

  1. Android app v33.0.1: Settings - > Auto upload

  2. Two instances of “Camera” shows up in the list, first with a photo icon and the other with a movie icon.
    First “Camera” section:
    /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera
    Remote folder: /InstantUpload/Camera

    and the second one:
    /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera
    Remote folder: /InstantUpload/Camera

  3. Enable auto upload on both

  4. Two instances of DCIM shows up, first one with just 10 files and the other with 1 file.

    First DCIM:
    /storage/emulated/0/DCIM
    Remote folder: /InstantUpload/DCIM

    and the second one:
    /storage/emulated/0/DCIM
    Remote folder: /InstantUpload/DCIM

  5. Other auto upload folders I have chosen to auto upload include:
    /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera/120FPS_VIDEO
    Remote folder: /InstantUpload/120FPS_VIDEO

    /storage/emulated/0/Download
    Remote folder: /InstantUpload/Download

  6. Enable auto upload on the folder as mentioned in 4. and 5.

  7. Settings that are enabled for auto upload on the folders:
    Only upload on unmetered Wi-Fi
    Also upload existing files
    Original file will be kept in original folder
    Ask me every time if the file already exists

  8. Navigate to /InstantUpload/ and you’ll find the Camera folder there, as well as inside the DCIM folder. Both are populated with the same image files.

Including logs feels redundant for this issue, but let me know if they are of actual importance.

2

A workaround that appears to work was to change the Camera folder’s remote folder to the one inside DCIM. After doing that I just deleted /InstantUpload/Camera.

Would be interesting to hear why this is even necessary in the first place.