Desktop Client cannot Upload/Download Files bigger 512MB

Hi, I am using NC31.0.6 running behind a NGinx Proxy Manager. Everything is running fine so far. Today I found out that Large Files stored on a External File Share (QNAP) using smbfs cannot be downloaded/uploaded using the Desktop Client 3.16.6

I was playing around a lot with several php and NPM paramters for Timeout etc., but all the time I get Timeouts or other error messages. Now I tried to upload a file with size 1024 MB to my main nextcloud folder running on the server itself. This works fine. So the Server itself can upload/download files bigger 512M.

Next test was to upload a large file (1024MB) using the webbrowser onto my External FileShare. Here the upload also works. So my last test was now again using the desktop client. When using the DesktopClient to upload the same file, I get an error. (For example: during upload of the file testfile.iso I get sometimes Error 504, somtimes the client is just stale, will never finish, abort, then I have a file testfile.iso~4394. Now this file is tried to be downloaded as well as the originalfile should uploaded. Both will abort, and I get more and more temp files. )

I am using NC31 on Debian 12, Desktop Client is running on Windows 11 Pro.

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This issue often happens due to timeout settings in your Nginx Proxy Manager or PHP config when handling large files on external SMB shares. Since web uploads work but the desktop client fails, try increasing proxy_read_timeout and proxy_connect_timeout in Nginx, and adjust PHP’s max_execution_time and upload_max_filesize. Also, check SMB server performance and network stability. Restart services after changes. This usually resolves desktop client timeouts with large external files.

Hm, I checked my configuration:

proxy_read_timeout 3200;
proxy_connect_timeout 3200;
client_max_body_size 0;

In PHP the values are:

8.2/apache2/php.ini:max_execution_time = 3600
8.2/fpm/php.ini:max_execution_time = 3600
8.2/cli/php.ini:max_execution_time = 30

8.2/apache2/php.ini:upload_max_filesize = 16G
8.2/fpm/php.ini:upload_max_filesize = 64G
8.2/cli/php.ini:upload_max_filesize = 2M

What else could it be, still no success…

What I also tried: I do not map the external folder from my QNAP via smb, but via NFS, and everything works as it should … no problem with filesize

I came across this issue when I had to use SMB as external storage and found uploading big files through wen UI worked (likely because of chunking), but downloads stopped after hitting 512MB mark.

Many reports exist and seem the problem manifests when you use “plain” smbclient package. Adding recommended php-smbclient resolved my issue and I can download bigger files as well.