Lost Data Directory

ℹ️ Support
1

I’m running NextCloud in a VM and the data directory is a separate virtual disk. Just the other day, there was some corruption to the data disk, which brought up a question in my mind:

If the data directory is lost, but the remainder of the server, including database and config file was intact, could I simply recreate the data drive, mount it, and let the clients re-upload the data to the server?

2

I don’t think that works. I guess it throws some errors when trying to update a file that is not there anymore.
Also I’m not sure if the client is capable to force-push all its local files.

3

Be careful!
If the servers timestamp is newer than clients timestamp then the clients are going to delete their local data.
You can do following

  1. move the data on clients to temporal folder
  2. start empty sync
  3. move back data on clients they will pull back local data to the server.
    and of course as usual do some backups before testing.:slight_smile:
4

Good point, @Arman_Khalatyan!

What about manually purging / modifying the database, so that the NextCloud server is unaware of the files? Will that then prompt the client to re-upload said files?

5

The problem is that the sync client keeps track of what it uploaded. And I would not touch the local database of the sync client for sure!

6

So it looks like in a scenario where the data directory on the server was lost or corrupt, the only way to get the clients to re-upload the files is by manually going to each workstation and preforming some actions. I wonder if simply changing the “Modified” date/time of all the files on the client would accomplish this; as that’s something that could probably be scripted or deployed en masse (just thinking out loud).