Can someone explain (or point to a tutorial) how to use a pastebin, and where all the info requested to ask for help can be found?

Support intro

Sorry to hear you’re facing problems :slightly_frowning_face:

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Sorry, I am going to ask questions which for most of you must look trivial, but I really do not know where to find the info you request. After a few unfruitful searches on the web, I decided to ask you directly.

In order to help you as quickly as possible, before clicking Create Topic please provide as much of the below as you can. Feel free to use a pastebin service for logs, otherwise either indent short log examples with four spaces:

example

Or for longer, use three backticks above and below the code snippet:

longer
example
here

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:

Nextcloud version (eg, 20.0.5): I know where to find this one: Settings - Overview - Version
Operating system and version (eg, Ubuntu 20.04): Where can it be found?
Apache or nginx version (eg, Apache 2.4.25): Where can it be found?
PHP version (eg, 7.4): Where can it be found?

The output of your Nextcloud log in Admin > Logging:
Where can it be found?

PASTE HERE

The output of your config.php file in /path/to/nextcloud (make sure you remove any identifiable information!):
Where can it be found?
Could you give a list of what info is considered to be identifiable?

PASTE HERE

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

Where can it be found?

PASTE HERE

PASTE HERE


Output errors in nextcloud.log in /var/www/ or as admin user in top right menu, filtering for errors. 

**Can you please explain more in detail how this is performed?**

Use a pastebin service if necessary.

**How does one use a pastebin service? Any suggestions on which to use and how to install it?**

PASTE HERE

this is basic knowledge for a website admin and not really nextcloud related. you should familiarize yourself with your OS (operating system) and shell.

there are many posible answers to your questions as it may differ depending on your installation type we must first know how you installed NC ex. link to a tutorial you followed.

basic shell commands:

list Operating System

cat /etc/lsb-release
cat /etc/os-release

php / apache versions

php -v
apache2 -v

program logs are usually in /var/log/

nc log is under /nc-data-dir/nextcloud.log

nc config.php in under /nc-install-dir/config/config.php

normal nc installation goes under /var/www/nextcloud but may vary upon installation.

here is a link to setup pastebin Easy way to paste command line output to paste bin services? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

but you can include logparts here within
[details] some log [/details]

some log

Thanks @Vincent_Stans for the very detailed answer. We set up our server with Hetzner, and I suppose that we do not have access to Ubuntu shell with that set up.

I have checked your hosting and they do seem to have shell access https://docs.hetzner.com/cloud/servers/getting-started/connecting-to-the-server/ though i’m not sure if it is enabled for all services.

That was very thoughtful of you. I am checking, I hope that we have access.

In addition to what Vincent_Stans said:

The issue template is mainly about saving time for the volunteers, who are trying to help, because obviously it is very time consuming if you have to pull every detail out of someone’s nose. The more info you provide upfront, the better.

For people maintaining a manual installation, like Vincent already said, it can be expected that they know which OS they are using and how to do basic things like reading logs etc… In case you are using a web hosting platform or one of the various appliances out there, the template may not always fit a 100% and also not all the details may be necessary in order to solve a problem or to answer a specific question. Here you have to use some common sense. Rule of thumb: Provide as much information as you can, because in most cases it is better if you are providing too much information rather than too little.

However, in my experience, no one here will call you out on not using the issue template, if they see you have put some effort in your post and described your problem as good as you can, even if you left out a few things in the template. This answer is usually given for “low effort” posts, which often contain only one or two sentences, like: “XY doesn’t work, what should I do?”

…or even worse, people who leave all the placeholders of the template in their posts, even though they have only filled out one section of it. Then you have to find the relevant information in a wall of irrelevant text. Most of the time I just ignore those posts… :wink:

Hi @bb77, thank you for pointing that out!

I would have loved to be able to give all the info needed, because providing more info would help solve the problem more quickly. But up to now, I was not able to access it (besides some more general info which I’ll provide).

Your post encourages me to go ahead and explain in another post the issue I am facing.

Still, if you do not mind, I will mark @Vincent_Stans answer as the solution, which would be the ideal scenario for the users who can access that info.

1 Like

Sure thing :slight_smile:

I just wanted to provide some additional and more general thoughts on the subject. Because for me, the decision to participate in a thread, was hardly ever based on whether someone has strictly adhered to the support template. The most important thing to me is that someone is willing to actively work towards a solution, rather than just demanding it. Of course, providing as much information as possible usually also helps with that… :slight_smile:

1 Like

identifiable info is information that may lead to you or harm your server security.

examples.

email adresses
usernames
email server settings
passwords
instance id
mysql server settings
other server settings

non private but many will hide

domain name
ip adresses

you could read some other posts here and see what others redact (hide/remove) from there posts.

@Vincent_Stans: thanks!

In this respect, would it be much to ask if you could have a look at my recent post?

Is there anything I should have deleted?

Sensible info may be in the Support intro, I believe and I might have missed all the sensible info that has to do with settings or ip addresses.