Help test the Android 3.0RC3 client

Hi all!

A new version of our Android app is in heavy development :iphone: As there have again be so many big changes, the team decided to call it 3.0 once it is out. For now, though, weā€™re at Release Candidate stage. That means: we canā€™t find bugs anymore so you have to help us hunt them down! :bug:

Grab the app via google play store as a beta tester: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.nextcloud.client
or later on Fdroid. :robot:

Note that this version of the client supports End-to-end encryption :lock: but youā€™ll need Nc 13 with the E2E app to test it. Other things to test include the auto-update, configurable storage, Android 8 support, IPv6 connectivity, rtl language support, :writing_hand: the activity view and just general clicking-around.

You can put your feedback in Github: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/new

Thanks!!!

4 Likes

Great! Perhaps an improvement could be to set an own passphrase for encryption or a copy symbol for sharing this passphrase to some password container or elsewhere.

is the hunt on NC-shirts only valid for NC-instance code itself or does it count for this one here as well? :wink:

No apk at https://github.com/nextcloud/android/releases :slight_smile:

Iā€™ve updated my app. Seems everything is working.

thnaks for your work !

we sure as bananas wonā€™t let ppl pick their own passphrase for encryption. We designed the end-to-end encryption to be idiot proof and users often pick bad passwords. In our design, they canā€™t :wink:

The passphrase is stored locally on the phone. It is indeed an idea to let users copy it though they shouldnā€™t be storing it on Nextcloud or email it unprotectedā€¦ Perhaps it is better if they take our advice: WRITE IT DOWN. Just that. Literally. It would certainly be bestā€¦

Awesome !! . Do we have a BETA/RC release for IoS, windows , linux that as
well ?

Yes on a abstract security logic youĀ“re absolutely right, but from user design / use this will never work great. WeĀ“ve to provide a way for restoring: if you write it down, the notice can be lost. There is more need for documentation and caution telling when an user want to encrypt anything: a warning etc.

1 Like

As a remark to the announcement we are also looking for help with translation of the app over at transifex https://www.transifex.com/nextcloud/nextcloud/android/
Every bit will be of great value :slight_smile:

1 Like

We have all files at https://download.nextcloud.com and for 3.0 RC1: https://download.nextcloud.com/android/nextcloud-30000001.apk

In fact you can copy the passphrase like regular text: long click on it and select it.
But as you said, Jos, there is a reason to not promote this too much :wink:

I suggest you read more about our end-to-end encryption design - it is described in our whitepaper you can download on Nextcloud features that put you in control

In short: we have a far better solution than letting users pick a password and hoping they read the documentation and warnings that tells them to pick a good one, write it down and not forget it

1 Like

Cool. Thanks.

After Iā€™ve installed the latest app version I realized the following behavior:

  1. In the past I had marked several folders and files as favorites which caused double entries in the favorites menu. Although Iā€™ve removed the favorite marker, I still get double folders displayed if I browse through the folder tree. How could I force a reload of a folder view and get rid of double entries?

  2. Iā€™ve removed all favorite markers in the app so that the favorites folder itself is empty. Nevertheless some of the favorite markers are automatically reappearing after Iā€™ve refreshed a folder?! How can I make sure that favorite markers are correctly removed?

  3. It is possible to lock the app with a PIN or fingerprint. Is it correct that you can enable both at the same time so that you have to authenticate twice to access the app? I would have expected that the fingerprint replaces the PIN and not add an additional authentication layer.

  1. on each folder entry we refresh the database. Strange is that a favorite folder is shown twice at all.
  2. see above: should be handled by app
  3. good point. on next release (3.1) we will change the pin/fingerprint system. It had to be postponed.

Regarding 1/2: if you want you can create a test account and see if it happens there also. If so you can send a mail to android at nextcloud dot com with a reference and I will have a look.

Unfortunately the refresh function seems not to work as expected because I wasnā€™t able to delete double entries by refresh the folder view. On my web server I saw that the app requested an update but it had no effect on how the sub-folder was displayed in the app.

Therefore I decided to delete the app and reinstall it to start from scratch. After entering my credentials I opened the folder and now all sub-folders were only displayed once.
Then I marked a file a sub-folder as favorite and switch to the favorite menu entry in the app.

Surprisingly both favorites were displayed twice again. I return to the original folder and checked the entries again and the file and the "favorite " directory and file entries were displayed twice in that view too.
I wasnā€™t able to solve it be deselecting the favorite markers. The folder view still showed double entries.

Nice analysis @j-ed, as a favor can I ask you to report it to the issue tracker on Github, here: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues ? This way itā€™ll be picked up by the devs way faster :slight_smile:

Is there a way to reset the password? I misplaced it, since I do not save testing passwords in my password save. I donā€™t find a way to reset it via app or otherwise.

@j-ed can you create a test account and try if it happens also there and if so send us the credentials to android at nextcloud dot com?

@MorrisJobke is there a password reset feature?
@lars-becker the Android app itself doesnā€™t have such a feature

1 Like