Google crippled my Nextcloud app on Android

NextCees · January 19, 2025, 12:50pm

Maybe three months or longer The Android App for NextCloud does not show all the files in a map or upload view. On Android App you see in the Download map the following files:

On Solid Explorer App you see the following files:

This is an example and I hoped it would get fixed. But now also on the tablet of my wife files do not show up from the server where the file do come up on my tablet.

My tablet is a Samsung S8+. There is no extra memory in the tablet.

I am sure there must be something wrong here but I have checked everything, I cannot think of anything to check that might fix it.

Any ideas where to look?

wbk · January 19, 2025, 6:25pm

Hi NextCees,

What do you mean by ‘a map or upload view’?

For the first image, “Android App for Nextcloud”:

On Android, I know of the apps “Nextcloud” and “Nextcloud dev”. Is it one of these, or another app? Which version?
For starters, I’ll assume you use one of these apps
Which location is displayed? Is it a view of the directory on your server, or of a directory on your phone?
As far as I can see, all media files that are in the second image, are present in the first image. Is that only the case for this example, or also for other discrepancies?

For the second image, “Solid Explorer App”:

On which platform does this run?
Does it show a listing of files on your phone, on Nextcloud, or another synchronised location (such as laptop or PC)
As observed above: there is a match for all media files

I read something about changes in two-way synchronization for the app “Nextcloud” on Android on Github, but I have no idea whether your observations could be caused by this.

Do you have auto upload enabled in the settings? For me, auto upload comes on the one hand with suggestions by the app per (save directory of) source app and per media type (so, “Camera” caused two suggestions, one for photos, one for videos), and on the other hand to “Set up a custom folder”, which will uploads all files of every type in that directory.

As part of these automatic suggestions, there are two entries for “Download”: one for images, one for videos.

The files displayed in your first screenshot match what I would expect after enabling these two suggestions.

NextCees · January 19, 2025, 7:14pm

Hello WBK,
Thanks for helping me. Sory to give insufficient information. Hope this helps.

The Server:
Besturingssysteem: Linux 6.8.0-51-generic x86_64
CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i5-12400 (12 threads)
Geheugen: 15.37 GB
Servertijd: Sun Jan 19 19:41:33 CET 2025
Bedrijfstijd: 33 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes, 3 seconds

PHP: Versie: 8.3.6
Geheugen limiet: 4 GB
Maximale uitvoeringstijd: 3600
Max. uploadgrootte: 10 GB
Frequentie OPcache opnieuw valideren: 60
Extensies: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, filter, hash, json, random, Reflection, SPL, session, standard, sodium, apache2handler, mysqlnd, PDO, xml, bcmath, bz2, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, mbstring, FFI, fileinfo, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, iconv, igbinary, imagick, intl, exif, mysqli, pdo_mysql, Phar, posix, readline, redis, shmop, SimpleXML, sockets, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tokenizer, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, Zend OPcache

The Database: Type: mysql
Versie: 10.11.8
Grootte: 434,3 MB

The tablet: Samsung Galaxy TAB S+ running with Android 14, One UI 6.1.1. Safety Patch November 1st 2024.

The Android App: NextCloud version 3.30.7

The tree structure of the NC-App allow you to upload files from the platform it is running on to the server as mentioned above by clicking on the +sign and select upload files. On my tablet it look as:

On this page you can select files you can upload. The figure above shows the currently displays on top of the page the map/directory that is displayed. You can also go to other maps or sub directories in the file system of the platform/tablet/Android tablet.

The issue is that at the upload page i see only the file in the picture above, that is 7 files to upload from in the download map of the NextCloud App of the tablet.

I use Solid Explorer to search/manipulate/edit and so on, files on the tablet. If I go to the download map of the tablet (which is the same map as I want to upload files from to the server) I see the following files in the download folder:

As you see now many more files are visible and really present on the tablet in the same Download folder of the tablet. A few of these files I would like to upload to the server so I can use them on my Windows 11 computers which are also connected the the NextCloud server.

Unfortunately I cannot find them in the presented files in the Android NextCloud app on my Android Tablet while they are definitely present but not shown. That is my issue…

Yes I have auto upload configured on the NextCloud App on my Android Tablet. That works not so well as a few months ago which forces me to use other methods to get pictures on the server,

Thanks for your reaction, Best regards Cees.

wbk · January 19, 2025, 8:49pm

Hi NextCees,

Thanks for elaborating! I’m sorry, I think I have a vague Idea what you say, but I still don’t really understand where the problem arises.

I had installed the -dev version of the app at some point, and stuck with it. Perhaps the apps diverged at some point. Mine does not have a tree structure, could you post a screenshot?

The menu on the left hand has an entry for files on the server (“A” in my screenshot) and one for files on the device (“B”):

When using the app, it will display files from “A” by default, thus only showing files on the server. If you compare those six files in your first screenshot with the files that you see when you open the same location in Nextcloud via your browser, do you see the same six files?

Sorry for totally misunderstanding I hope someone with experience with the regular Nexctloud-app for Android comes along!

NextCees · January 19, 2025, 9:26pm

Hi WBK, Boudewijn,

I am aware of the options and the selections you can make through the ‘Hamburger’ Menu at the top left screen of the opening page from the App. That’s correct.

The screen I show in my first picture should only show local files. The purpose is to upload local files from the Android device onto the NextCloud Server. So there is one purpose only of the showed screen picture which is showing all the files in the chosen directory/Map so that you can select from them.

The issue is that not all the files are shown, what indeed should be the case. Also that I have no way to influence that myself. Therefore I believe it is a bug.

Best regards, Cees.

wbk · January 19, 2025, 9:35pm

How do you get to that first screenshot? Which menu option should I chose in my app to perform the action of uploading files?

I only use the app only for browsing files on Nextcloud and for auto-upload from phone to server, so I may learn something new while trying to help you out

I’m trying to reproduce the behaviour that you witness on my side, by replaying the steps you describe.

NextCees · January 19, 2025, 9:56pm

The entry screen from the NextCloud App looks like follows:

On the right bottom of the screen you should find a blue button with a + sign on it. Then you enter you would like to upload files. Then you come into the highest level of the android device from where you can choose a file or open a sub directory and select a file from there.

Succes!

wbk · January 20, 2025, 12:24pm

Thanks for your patience and perseverence

Your screenshot would be from the menu option I designated “A”, earlier (“All files”).

I never hit the “+” button there! It brings me to this submenu, where I click “Upload files”:

Now I can chose files on my device to upload/sync to Nextcloud:

For comparison, I chose the Download folder on my device as well (“I”).

The upload options (“III”) are different than in your case, because this is not a read-only directory. That the options are not clear to me is off-topic for now

As you see, the big arrows at “II” point at non-media files (PDF and APK).

In this regard, my app behaves differently from yours does, for the last couple of months.

I thought, “maybe some filter is active?” Either implicit (app saying: “You want to upload to a media directory in Nextcloud, I only display media files for chosing”) or explicit (an unknown to me filter in the app to only display certain file types, set by accident a few months back), and tried to find information about filtering options in the app.

There are requests for that, but no actual functionality.

There is an issue about ‘forced’ filtering though! This ‘filter’ is implemented by the Play Store, by not allowing the Nextcloud app access to your files. So it actually is a bug. Not in the Nextcloud app, but in Googles business model. An issue has been opened on Github:

This is due to the Google Team in charge of the Play-Store not allowing the Nextcloud App to access all files.

The behaviour on my side may not resemble the behaviour on your side, because my apps are disctributed by F-Droid instead of by Google.

NextCees · January 20, 2025, 7:09pm

Hello Boudewijn,

Reading your latest replay I think this is a good explanation. I have tried to give the Nextcloud App as many allowances (not the correct English word) as possible in the Google configuration of the Nextcloud App. Nothing changes.

What is strange is that an other App being “Solid Explorer” can access all files. Therefore I find your mentioned point that Google restricts the using of files on the device difficult to understand.

Maybe there is a configuration item that has not been explored? But than you explain that this is under discussion. Maybe we have to wait until this further developes?

It makes the app Nextcloud less usable. What I practice now is to lookup the file with Solid Explorer and from there share it to the Nextcloud server. There after I can use
the file further on my network

Thank for your extensive support in this matter! Hope it gets fixed in the near future.

Best regards, Cees.

wbk · January 20, 2025, 7:52pm

That works, but is a bit inconvenient of course

There is another discussion with more information at Automatic Upload Issue on Nextcloud Android Client (v3.30.6) - Android permissions lost after update · Issue #14199 · nextcloud/android · GitHub
It’s worth a read, not only to further your understanding of the issue but also to get air of the games Google plays to keep people away from Free/Open Source cloud platforms.

One detail that I wanted to warn you about, is that the chances are high that for the uploads that still do work, the EXIF/metadata for your photos get stripped by Android for the last few months.

Rant/other options

I think I found it. It strikes me that closed source apps / adware do work on Google’s platform, while Open Source apps get crippled by them.

As I wrote above, I only install Open Source apps and as such have no access to the Play Store. The non-googlified version ‘just works’ as you were used to up to a few months ago.

In case you get fed up with applying workarounds: you could have a look at F-Droid and install Nextcloud from there. To make matters complex: I’d advice, in that case, to install Nextcloud-dev; the reason being that both apps (Nextcloud and Nextcloud-dev) can coexist, so you don’t have to uninstall the Nextcloud you installed from the Play Store.

You could consider renaming your topic to “Google crippled my Nextcloud app on Android”, to make sure other people can find it.

Edit: move the /details-tag to the right place

NextCees · January 20, 2025, 8:19pm

Done!

NextCees · January 21, 2025, 4:47pm

Maybe this is already known by developers but I will mention it any way. There is a permission called “Files and Media” that is not available for the NextCloud App.

If I go through the Settings of my Android Tablet / Security and Privacy / Permission Manager you will find “Files and Media”. Tap on this Permission and then tap “Look at more apps that have access to all files”.

Then you see indeed all apps that have access. But the Nextcloud App does not have access. Also "Solid Explorer"App does not have access but is has anyway.

This all looks very funny / strange to me. What happens behind the scenes??

wbk · January 21, 2025, 8:21pm

My F-Droid-Nextcloud app does have the option to set access to “Photos and video”, but it is set to “Not allowed”. Even so, it has no problem accessing any file or directory. In the dot-menu top-right there is the option to “Show all permissions”, but that does not show anything file related.

The LineageOS default file browser (aptly but uselessly called “Files”) has only one permission, “Notifications”.

I seem to recall there has been, or is being implemented, a shift in the permission system on Android.

It could well be, that previously a file browsing app (such as Solid Explorer, “Files”, and Nextcloud) could tick “I need file access, as I am clearly a file manager”, but that that policy is being revoked by Google.

The point you make, or something close to it, is mentioned in the Github thread, I think. It won’t hurt to mention it here, but with Github being busy enough, most people there don’t have time to also monitor the messages on the forum.

NextCees · January 22, 2025, 10:01am

Version 3.30.8 was automatically installed on my tablet, an message appeared about settings. Checked it, hurray it works, upload of pictures and upload of files! Chapeau! Many thanks!