Incomplete transfer ownership

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The Basics

  • Nextcloud Server version (e.g., 29.x.x):
    • 34.0.1-apache
  • Operating system and version (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04):
    • Linux 5.14.0-687.23.2.el9_8.x86_64 x86_64
  • Web server and version (e.g, Apache 2.4.25):
    • unknown
  • Reverse proxy and version _(e.g. nginx 1.27.2)
    • unknown
  • PHP version (e.g, 8.3):
    • unknown
  • Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Yes / No):
    • Yes
  • When did this problem seem to first start?
    • When I transferred ownership
  • Installation method (e.g. AlO, NCP, Bare Metal/Archive, etc.)
    • Pikapod
  • Are you using CloudfIare, mod_security, or similar? (Yes / No)
    • Yes - Cloudflare

Summary of the issue you are facing:

  • I initiated an ownership transfer of a very large directory from one user to another.
  • It seems that it never finished because I never got a notification that the transfer was complete
  • Some of the directory structure seems to have copied over, but there are still files in the original location
  • The new location has mostly empty directories everywhere, but there does exist some real data.

What can I do in this situation where files seemed to have never completed their transfer, but seemed to have initiated the ownership transfer?

transfer_ownership
transfer_ownership4364×1058 534 KB

The list on the right exist in the account I was transferring from, and the left is where I was transferring to. It seems that only the directory structure copied over.

I am using Nextcloud hosted on Pikapods. I have an SFTP remote setup for rclone. Can I just use rclone to move the files from one location to the other? Or would that mess with ownership and permissions & such?

Steps to replicate it (hint: details matter!):

  1. Settings >
  2. Sharing >
  3. Files > Transfer ownership of a file or folder
  4. Select a very large folder (in my case it was about 600GB)
  5. Select new owner
  6. Initiate, accept on other end
  7. Wait forever
  8. Failure?

Log entries

Nextcloud

Please provide the log entries from your Nextcloud log that are generated during the time of problem (via the Copy raw option from Administration settings->Logging screen or from your nextcloud.log located in your data directory). Feel free to use a pastebin/gist service if necessary.

I cannot provide logs from this since it was so long ago.

Web Browser

If the problem is related to the Web interface, open your browser inspector Console and Network tabs while refreshing (reloading) and reproducing the problem. Provide any relevant output/errors here that appear.

PASTE

Web server / Reverse Proxy

The output of your Apache/nginx/system log in /var/log/____:

PASTE HERE

Configuration

Nextcloud

The output of occ config:list system or similar is best, but, if not possible, the contents of your config.php file from /path/to/nextcloud is fine (make sure to remove any identifiable information!):

PASTE HERE

Apps

The output of occ app:list (if possible).

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2

How did you initiated this ownership transfer? Via the Web Interface or using the Command Line and occ files:transfer-ownership?

3

Web interface. Unfortunately I do not have access to shell/ or occ since this is a hosted Nextcloud instance.

4

I tried rerunning the ownership transfer and saw this show up in the logs:

ForbiddenExceptionInvalid path: //var/www/html/data/nc-pika-user-xxxxx/files/Documents/sync/.htaccess
Error while running background job OCA\Files\BackgroundJob\TransferOwnership (id: 107784007146274817, arguments: {"id":9})
5

Since you have sftp-access to the NC-Server, so you may be able to also access via ssh. Is that correct?

6

No, I don’t have ssh access unfortunately. Just SFTP.

7

Do you know the credentials of both users involved? If so you may use WebDAV-Mounts and transfer the files and folders from one WebDAV-Mount to the other.

Also i googled Error while running background job OCA\Files\BackgroundJob\TransferOwnership. Gemini (google’s AI) delivers (beside other explanations) this:

If the log trace mentions a ForbiddenException or Invalid path, corrupted file paths or hidden system files (like .htaccess) may be blocking the process.

That matches to your:

But let me say: i host my own Nextcloud-Server. So i have full root access and don’t have limited access as you have. So all i would do to solve such a problem would be done by using my root privileges and the command line.