Desktop client has less releases and is behind master

Ok, using ownCloud client as well. There is no guarantee to have it working after next update and I just want to know what the reason is to have less releases.

Same for me. Owncloud started to implement delta-sync, Nextcloud comes with E2E encryption, so serious differences can be expected soon (though both are optional features).

I hope the Open Source features will be implemented into the Nextcloud client too. Aside from that, the Owncloud client has a better update system/infrastructure (on Windows and official repositories for Linux at least).

Looks the same for me. The desktop client is currently not the main task/project at Nextcloud. They do a lot of great other stuff btw. As long as the ownCloud client works it is ok for me. Like to see synergy of both projects.
@tflidd Do you have a link for delta-sync?

Not much, they have a tag for it and a dedicated branch:

They have merged the server part already into the master branch (https://github.com/owncloud/core/pull/29404).

For the client, I haven’t seen a packaged testing version (you can build it yourself). And it only works, if bytes are added to a file (not when changed or moved within a file):
https://github.com/owncloud/client/issues/179#issuecomment-363788305

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Interesting detail.

See first blog post about it:
https://owncloud.org/news/welcome-delta-sync-for-owncloud/

Let’s see if it comes in a new major release (as they say) or in a bugfix release - they backported some big stuff already.

Either way, sure, we can merge it too, the volunteer contributor who wrote the delta-sync already looked at doing it for Nextcloud, too.

Meanwhile we have internal builds for a new E2EE client, we’ll release it as soon as it has gotten a bit of internal testing. Already found a bug in the Android E2E implementation :wink:

So stay tuned!

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Hello Jos,

do you have some download numbers for us? Desktop client compared to mobile clients?
During the first *cloud years the client had a rapid development and a lot releases.
Now it is more quiet and I like to understand the priority the client has for the Nextcloud project.

The desktop client has a far higher priority now than a year ago - that’s why we work on it a lot :wink:

But none of that work has been released, it will be in the next major release (2.5). We decided to skip the current series (2.4) as it wasn’t very stable and had some horrible UI stuff we wanted to fix first. We now have 2 people working on making E2E stable and 1 person working on the UI, notifications and other features. Patience :wink:

And yeah, the E2E - it is merged now, so you can build master if you want to try it. We’re working on getting automatic building infra up but hey, if somebody does that or wants to do it, he/she’d be welcome :smiley:

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Hey Jos,

thanks for your thoughts.
I will test it and provide feedback as soon as there are pre releases.

Cheers

The guys at OC added a nice feature VFS to their alpha of v.2.5
Would be really cool to get this in the Nextcloud world as well.

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Will be a cool feature for devices with low disk space (like all these junk notebooks with 32GB disk space), but if this is in alpha state it would be better to wait until it matured enough.

I have yesterday upgraded to nc 13.0.2 and set up e2e with the android app, created an encrypted folder and load up a test file. In the web ui the directory is marked as encrypted.
So I build yesterday the Linux desktop client on Debian Sid, but the desktop client doesn’t work with the encryption, no password question and the file from the test folder is just downloaded. I’ven’t found a way to force it, any hints to this?

It’s the development version. Best is, to ask them directly by opening an issue on github. Nobody here has seen a desktop client with E2E :disappointed_relieved:

Well, actually there is one (for Windows and Linux at least): https://download.nextcloud.com/desktop/prereleases/E2E/Linux/

There is a new preview out for testing:

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The client received a lot of attention the last months.

Hopefully this will will continue.

Support it by testing RCs.

Honestly, after reviewing the commits from the past month, there really hasn’t been a lot of work done on the client. It’s especially concerning to me that the new client version consistently crashes (on multiple machines), about once a day. Nobody seems to have even looked at that issue yet :frowning:

Having said all that, per your recommendation I just downloaded the daily build from Jan.15 and will be testing that out. I don’t see any RC available though.

Hello,

myself is using v2.5.1 on three machines (Mac, Lin and Win) and the clients work reliable. Had zero crashes and it feels good.

Well hopefully it’s working properly for most people, which is definitely a good thing. Maybe lack of activity for my issue is a sign that not many others are having the same problem. It’s unfortunate for those few of us that do have the problem though, and I’m still going to keep using 2.3.x for now.
I just tried the latest version again yesterday but it crashed within 30 minutes and locked up Windows entirely for me :frowning_face:

I’ll keep watching for updates and I have no problem being the first to test daily, beta, or RC versions!

I really do hope the developers take a look at my issue soon though, as there are at least a few others who have experienced crashes. I would think that’s a high priority.