File Versioning with WebDAV and Excel/Word doesn't work when other files do work

ℹ️ Support
1

Nextcloud version: 20.0.0.11
Operating system: Centos 7.8
Apache version: 2.4.6
PHP version: 7.4.11

I have a large shared document store that is connected to people using WebDAV.

If I create, save, close, open, change, save a text document using something like notepad or other simple programs that change the file the versioning works as expected and I can see all the versions.

However if I do the same thing with Excel what I see in the Activity for the file is a temp file being created, a temp file being changed, and a temp file being renamed to my excel file name. If I open, change, save, close again I see a different temp file name being created, changed, and renamed to my excel file name. The versioning never shows any versions.

Is it because of the way Excel manages files with temp files being renamed?

How can I either get excel/office to stop doing that or get Nextcloud to recognize what it’s doing and keep the old versions in the file versioning?

Thanks,
Scott

1 Like
2

I have the exact same problem. File versioning is not working for Microsoft excel and word files. File history of any .xlsx, .docx file shows that it is renamed out of a temp file.

I believe this is because of how Word and Excel files are saved. Indeed MS Excel first creates a temp file whenever a file is edited and renames it back to the original file. Since temp file doesn’t have any history, owncloud is unable to link it back to the previous Excel file. I think, if nextcloud can link the new temp file to the existing excel file, the file can be versioned.

Is there any way in which .xlsx and .docx files can be properly versioned in nextcloud?

3

Can anyone from nextcloud community suggest a solution for this issue, please?

4

I have a similar problem but I am unable to save a file that I have worked on so I have to give it a new name in order to save it. It only happens on work and excel

5

Same problem here. Versioning of Word files through webdav doesn’t work, it just understands every save as a new file and there’s no way to catch other version. Just found that in trash bin you can find the “deleted” version, but definitely not an option.

Desktop clien synchronization works better, it recognizes every version as expected.