Community document server fails to store changes into Nexcloud

System
Nextcloud version: 18.0.3
Operating system and version: Ubuntu 16.0.4
Apache or nginx version: 2.4.41
PHP version: 7.2.28
OnlyOffice Community Server bundled with NextCloud 18
Nextcloud desktop client 2.6.4 Linux
Nextcloud desktop client 2.6.4 Mac

The issue you are facing:
Edits and changes made in Onlyoffice are not saved into Nextcloud and the next sync from Nextcloud to Onlyoffice destroys by overwriting all changes made in Onlyoffice. This results in loss of work. We just lost two days of work by a very expensive consultant. I had to take down Onlyoffice to avoid further losses. As it is now the onlyoffice integration is NOT SUITABLE for production.

Files stored in the local desktop environment are synced flawlessly to Nextcloud. Onlyoffice opens them flawlessly and lets the user edit the document. After saving the document and or logging out from nextcloud changes are kept in OnlyOffice cache and never written to the actual document. When user opens same document from the desktop the changes have disappeared. If user saves the document with a small change, this change is synced to OnlyOffice overwriting the changes in the cache.

Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Y/N):
No, it happens all the time

Steps to replicate it:

  1. Use a desktop wordprocessor and create a document in a NextCloud synced folder in your desktop environment
  2. Log onto the Nextcloud web UI and open the file with OnlyOffice.
  3. Ask colleague to do the same
  4. Make changes in document
  5. Exit document ask your colleague to do the same.
  6. Open document with desktop wordprocessor from local NextCloud synced folder.
  7. Notice that the changes never were saved to the file in NextCloud,.
  8. Open file in OnlyOffice from the Nextcloud web UI to notice changes are still there
  9. Close OnlyOffice
  10. Make minimal change in the desktop wordprocessor and save file locally.
  11. Let NextCloud desktop client sync the file to the cloud
  12. Open file in OnlyOffice from the Nextcloud web UI to notice all changes made in OnlyOffice have been lost and overwritten with those made in the desktop environment
  13. Feel despair.

The output of your Nextcloud log in Admin > Logging:
Nothing relevant was found. Only lots of these Normalizing warnings.

PASTE {"reqId":"lGZCqvCVCiZvPy7lTRa9","level":2,"time":"2020-03-26T06:02:17+00:00","remoteAddr":"","user":"--","app":"core","method":"","url":"--","message":"normalizing failed for \"v1_6 – kopio.bak\"","userAgent":"--","version":"18.0.3.0","id":"5e7c4a71dc35f"}

The output of your config.php file in /path/to/nextcloud

PASTE $CONFIG = array (
  'passwordsalt' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'secret' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'trusted_domains' => 
  array (
    0 => 'localhost',
    1 => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  ),
  'datadirectory' => '/home/shares/data',
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '18.0.3.0',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://localhost',
  'dbname' => 'nextcloud',
  'dbhost' => 'localhost',
  'dbport' => '',
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'dbuser' => 'oc_admin',
  'dbpassword' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'installed' => true,
  'instanceid' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'maintenance' => false,
  'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu',
  'memcache.locking' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
  'redis' => 
  array (
    'host' => 'localhost',
    'port' => 6379,
  ),
  'mail_domain' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'mail_from_address' => 'erp',
  'mail_smtpmode' => 'smtp',
  'mail_smtphost' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'mail_smtpauthtype' => 'PLAIN',
  'mail_sendmailmode' => 'smtp',
  'mail_smtpauth' => 1,
  'mail_smtpname' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'mail_smtppassword' => '-----------------:-)----------------',
  'theme' => '',
  'loglevel' => 2,
  'updater.release.channel' => 'stable',
  'ldapIgnoreNamingRules' => false,
  'ldapProviderFactory' => 'OCA\\User_LDAP\\LDAPProviderFactory',
  'mysql.utf8mb4' => true,
);

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

PASTE Nothing relevant found in the error log

1 Like

We recognised similar Problem: Creating Office Document, edit, close it.
The synced document is empty when it’s opened in Word.

I did then take a closer look with ftp: the content of OnlyOffice documents is stored in different folder than the origin doc folder at file system.

This looks like the doc content is separated from the base file.

How to handle syncronisation of OnlyOffice documents ?

Rolf

I have noticed the same issue. When I open the file in only office, I see the updated content. When I click download and open with LibreOffice, I see old content. When I sync to Windows 10, I see old content. When I sync to Ubuntu and open in LibreOffice, I see old content. When I open up the file in the Android app, it uses only office, and I see the updated content.

Hi all,
I think I can confirm this behavior on my setup as well.

Server: ARM64 box, NC 18.0.4 with OO installed via web UI.
Clients: Linux MATE 18.3 / Linux MATE 19.3, NC client 2.6.4stable

When I create a document in the web UI with OO and edit it over some period of time, only the first version gets synced to the clients. This is not the case when I edit a simple text file in the web UI.

The difference is, that the OO document timestamp does not change when I edit it via the web UI. The documents I created and edited over several days still claim to be changed at the point in time when they were created. So it is obvious that the sync client does not pick up the changes on these documents. To me this is an OO integration issue. The client works ok.

@chris.j, @timo12357, @RR-Itons: can you confirm my observation regarding the change timestamp?

Regards,
mbcon

The question I have is where does OO save/update the files? I still see the changes when I open up the file in OO.

I think the changes are properly stored in NC, but the sync client does not detect that there was a change on the file, because the timestamp does not change in NC. So the changed file is not replicated by the sync client.
But if I change the file locally, the sync client will compare the local timestamp against the one in NC. The local file is of course newer and the sync client pushes it to NC, overwriting changes made with the NC web UI in the meantime.

For me it all comes down to the fact that OO does for some reason not update the (relevant) timestamp.

"I think the changes are properly stored in NC,"…I’ll continue to try and find the updated file on the filesystem. So what I think I need to investigate is:

  1. Does the file on NC contain the updated content and non-updated timestamp?
  2. Use case to prove it?

Based on what I have witness and @timo12357’s comment, I would say the file content does not change and the date does not change. When I went to download the file from the desktop client (on Linux & Win 10), I downloaded an old file. So even if the timestamp has not changed, and I just installed a fresh copy of the desktop client, I should have a file with updated content and an old timestamp. Instead I got old content, which to me, signals a major OO integration issue.

Just to clarify, the 2 issues are:

  1. Content
  2. Timestamp

Thanks

Hello,
Dont continue this redundant issue, its a very known issue. You can check other threads here or on github. For exemple :

The problem is the new document server application. Install OO server with docker for example if you want a safe installation :
https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/server/docker/document/docker-installation.aspx

1 Like

Thanks for the update @bastien. Is it possible to fix or is docker usage the only solution? I’ll read over the posts you’ve highlighted.

Today it happened with 4 people working on a docx for an hour. My own server, snap installation 20.0.7. Never experienced problems before. The file can’t be opened even after I rebooted my Nextcloud Server.

As this problem seems to exist for quite some time as I found out here today, I’m really setup. This needs a FIX … SOON! -ws

Hello,
You dont need to spam all thread on OO, it is not productive.

It is a known and old issue. I don’t really understand why NC doesnt remove temporarly OO built in server app from app store but is is also the responsability of the administrator to inquire and propose a viable solution. Bugs on apps sometimes happen here.
If you want a viable solution, you can use OO with docker or apt