Disagree.
There is NO error situation, as the App is there and working, it’s just not configured. Not the same.
Second: Installing an App silently with an update of NC without guiding through a configuration process or providing any information about the App being installed, what it is and that it needs Docker and a configuation is a NoGo and not only unprofessional but also very bad UX.
So you’d prefer a yellow warning sign then? 
Yep, I agree, and I never said otherwise in any of my previous posts.
EDIT:
Small addition:
I’d go even further and say that installing an app silently when you know that many of your users don’t need it and, even worse, can’t use it because Docker is kind of difficult to set up, let’s say, in a web hosting environment , is unprofessional.
On the other hand, so called “professional” products would likely bothering you with messages like `Did you already try our AppAPI?’ Expand your experience with our new AppAPI’, and maybe even spam the notification area, or worse, using full screen pop-ups when logging in. Not sure if that would have been received better here.
Anyways, my point was: Yeah, not cool. But there’s no need to bring out the big guns and talk about ‘enshitification’ because of something like this.
Reading through the thread, the answer the OP was looking for hasn’t been given. The simple answer is, that if you don’t need the AppAPI (and a lot of people probably won’t), then you can just go to Active Apps and disable it.
As to why it was turned on by default is another matter.
Personally, I feel that it shouldn’t have been, all it is doing is annoying users who don’t need that function and is driving ordinary people away from Nextcloud.
If Nextcloud really wants to gain traction, it HAS to stop driving away ordinary people who just want to escape from Big Tech. Not all of us want to make out that we are super techy sys admins, we just want stuff that works and can make our lives better without having to use the “services” of the big spyware companies.
Not true.
Well, but the world isn’t always as simple as we would like it to be, is it?
In my opinion, that’s the only “matter” here. Because if it weren’t automatically enabled, no error message would have popped up, and this thread almost certainly wouldn’t exist.
I think it already has gaind quite a lot of traction,
See, this is the argument I never really understand whenever it comes up here. Of course, things can always be optimised and improved, but that doesn’t change the fact that if you’re installing server apps — whether it’s on a home server/NAS, or with a web hosting provider like the OP — then you’re no longer a ‘regular user’. You’re part of a very small group, maybe 1% of users at most. Normal users don’t have a home NAS and for sure they don’t provide any server apps in any form or fashion, regardless of how “easy” it might get. They might install an app from the Play Store or Apple App Store, but for most of them, that’s where their administrative interaction with computers ends!
Nevertheless, self-hosting has generally become much easier; otherwise, I would argue that many people here (including myself) would not be able to host their own Nextcloud server. However, it still requires you to consult the documentation from time to time, as well as perhaps using your preferred search engine or a forum to find answers to specific questions. If you call that beeing a ‘super techy sys admin’, then I suppose we’re all super techy sys admins!
By the way, the AppAPI isn’t just about AI. It allows app developers to build Nextcloud apps in programming languages other than PHP and integrate them in a standardised way. This helps to attract a broader developer base.
I made an account here just to reply to this thread.
Unlike some / most (?) of the users in this thread, I’m a Sysadmin by trade.
I just upgraded NC from 31 to 32 and got this warning, same as OP.
First, I searched DDG and didn’t see anything specifically referring to the warning. Next thing I did was check the upgrade notes because previous new-to-me setup warnings were usually noted: Upgrade to Nextcloud 32 — Nextcloud latest Administration Manual latest documentation
There is no mention of “AppAPI” in the notes. No explanation of the critical “error” that I got on the setup warnings page, no explanation of what AppAPI is, whether I would need it or not.
As someone mentioned, the docs to explain how to set up a container for it, but, like much documentation I find, it’s missing the why.
(it also doesn’t seem to explain what HaRP is or what it stands for, it dives straight into setting it up)
A lot of that is answered here, but for something like this it should be in the upgrade notes!
It could be as simple as:
Upon upgrading to NextCloud 32, the AppAPI extension is installed and enabled. This allows external applications to run in a Docker container and communicate with NextCloud. This needs a some configuration to set up. If you don’t need it, you can disable the extension to remove the warning. To read more, see AppAPIAndExternalApps.html
To be fair, the error message refers to the settings…
…and there it says:
AppAPI
The AppAPI Project is an exciting initiative that aims to revolutionize the way applications are developed for Nextcloud through the use of docker containers. Allowing for greater programming language choice and allowing computationally expensive tasks to be offloaded to a different server.
But yes, I agree that this could have been handled better. I think it should never have been enabled by default. And if they insist on doing so, there should at least be links to explanations and documentation in the error message itself.
However, I also understand that they want to make users aware of new features and possibilities, so they should probably come up with a better way of doing this in the medium term. I would suggest adding a ‘News’ section to the ‘Overview’ page, or something similar.
So, as i understood correctly that “exciting initiative”, they are going to force us to install docker directly onto the production server. And if my security department says no to docker on the same nextcloud server, it is nextcloud who will be ditched, not our security department. So, yes, this is the first sign to start looking for more secure and industrialized alternatives.
And how does one do that?
In the same way that you would disable any other app. Log in to your Nextcloud account as an administrator, go to the ‘Apps’ page, then select ‘Active Apps’. Find the ‘AppAPI’ app in the list and click ‘Disable’.
I was looking in the administrator settings, but it turns out to be another menu.
Thank you!
That’s what i meant when i wrote NC is really bad in communications and it seems they don’t care about it, as with tons of related feedback since years, they still have not improved.
Another example of this rather learn resistent behaviour is the download issue. Also there, since years they just ignore best practises.
While the world needs a FOSS groupware solution and NC added a lot after being forked from OC, there is a severe lack of product management and understanding of the sysops perspective in the NC team.
Also, I never really had the impression the team really cares about the community. They do their own thing. In these terms, NC is rather a free to use software than traditional FOSS.
It’s sad so see the NC team has not learned that software these days isn’t just about coding, it’s so much more. Ignoring this fact will not change it.
Again, as I stated above: It’s their decision. However, on the long run, the users while judge with their boots and walk away.
I’m quite new to the Nextcloud universe and while I’m aware of the fact that this is very complex stuff with lots of people involved, I’m quite disappointed with official communication as well.
I’m no programmer, but I would describe myself as an experienced IT user. After upgrading to NC 32.0.01, I spent literally hours to find some information about two major issues which I encountered:
First, the Mail app and the News app cannot coexist in peace currently: If you use Mail and activate the News app, the logfile is flooded with thousands of error messages because there are PHP conflicts, see
Second, it is not possible to unshare files in the Files app right now as long as the Maps app is activated, see
It took me quite a while to find these threads that confirm that I’m not the only one who encountered strange behaviour of apps that worked flawlessly before the upgrade.
I’m quite sure that there are many other users out there who are frustrated by issues like that and who are left alone with their problems.
Asking the correct questions and finding (and understanding!) the answers given in forums or github is probably not an option for ordinary users with little or no IT background.
It would be very helpful to implement a “known issues” page/announcement board where plain users can see that the issues they have encountered are known and will (hopefully) be solved somewhen soon…
I second the opinion that many frustrated user will “judge with their boots and walk away” when a potentially great software platform provides more sorrows than solutions in the long run.
Fixing known bugs and stabilizing existing features should always be considered to be more important than implementing fancy new features.
@zonebattler The Maps and News app is not maintained by Nextcloud, even though this impression may arise (e.g. because the code is unter github.com/nextcloud).
(I don’t want to disagree or agree with you, I just wanted to point that out.)
Thank you for pointing that out, I did not know (or realize) that.
I do, however, know exactly what you are talking about: I spent my entire professional career (43 years) working for the German railways (Deutsche Bundesbahn/Deutsche Bahn) and was held responsible by friends and relatives for each and every mishap they ever encountered on a train ride, regardless of it’s true cause and origin…
Switching back to Nextcloud I’d like to point out myself that the many Apps available are adding to the attractivity of Nextcloud quite in the same way the thousands of third-party-plugins add value to WordPress. With the difference that I personally consider Apps like Mail and News as so basic and important that I would never ever had even considered that they do NOT come from the original Nextcloud developers as well!
So it is probably in the Nextcloud developers own interest to help external colleagues to get their stuff running again…
First of all, apart from the fact that they are apps, your post doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic of this thread. Although if third-party devs were to use the AppAPI more, instead of developing “native” Nextcloud apps, it would probably help to minimize such incompatibilities between different apps. But that is more of a side note.
Secondly, Mail is mostly developed by Nextcloud developers themselves, while News is a third-party or community app.
Well, what someone considers important is, of course, very subjective. But if you look at what Nextcloud aims to be, namely a file sharing, groupware, and collaboration platform intended as a replacement for M365 and Google Workspace, I’d consider email to be essential, while an RSS reader is more of a nice-to-have feature.
Sure, but on the other hand, a Nextcloud developer’s day also only has 24 hours. Resources are limited, and priorities have to be set. In general, I’d say that when it comes to community apps, it’s primarily the responsibility of the developers of those apps to ensure compatibility with Nextcloud, not necessarily the other way around.
Thank you for taking the time to argue. I appreciate your reasoning and I stand corrected in some of my previous assumptions.
And yes, resources are limited and priorities have to be set…
I’m not usually doing this but would like:
NC communication is not flawless but it’s good enough as long as we can ask on this forum.
This software is FREE and not “very” large scale. The cloud/paid/entreprise versions are also available if you want something without having to act as an admin.
I had to learn a lot at the beginning to make it work but today I’m very happy that NC exists.
…and despite its imperfections, it’s important to remember that Nextcloud is modular. If someone doesn’t need all the new and shiny features, they can simply disable them. Even today, it’s perfectly possible to run Nextcloud on a low-end “potato PC,” a single-board computer, or a cheap web hosting plan with a feature set and performance comparable to what ownCloud or early Nextcloud versions offered back in the day. Most of the “feature creep” people here or in similar threads complain about is completely optional.
And yes, Nextcloud maybe does use the community a bit as beta testers, like most FOSS projects do. There’s really no other way, because the amount of effort required to test every possible configuration internally before a release would be enormous. Big multi-billion tech corporations could maybe afford that, and even they don’t always succeed (looking at you, Microsoft ).
You can, however, minimize the risk of surprises and incompatibilities (not directly related to this thread’s topic) by simply waiting a bit longer before upgrading. If you upgrade only after the second or third point release of a major version, most major bugs are usually fixed, and most third-party apps are compatible by then — provided they’re still maintained.
At the end of the day, though, Nextcloud is a fairly complex piece of software. Depending on the feature set you use and the number of apps you’ve installed, it can sometimes become overwhelming. Especially for non-professional admins or small organizations running it “on the side” without a dedicated IT team, it can be difficult to keep track of everything.
For those users, I’d strongly recommend using Nextcloud AIO, for a much smoother out-of-the-box experience.