Missing features and bugs

[svefro]

I have just set up nextcloud and tested it a bit.

I wanted a product to replace onedrive.
But i find that some essential features are misssing
This is a short list of the things i have noticed.
There must be others that also miss these features

• When moving or copying files in web gui. there is no progress or retry option if operation fails. ongoing action should continue even if browser is closed.
  sometimes it actualy continues. but i can not see it anywhere. so suddenly a new folder pops upp.
• Copying a folder to another folder that contains a folder with the same name should merge the folders, not create a new one with “2” after it
  if i copy photos in to a folder named media. that also contains a folder named photos. i get photos2
• It is not possible to drag files to the sidebar folders section to move or copy them. using the move / copy function is cumbersom
  when syncing my files i got alot of warnings that some characters are not valid. even if filepath only contains normal letters and numbers.
• It would be nice with a simple backup function that can save databases and other settings directly to a users data directory.
  This way all nextcloud settings can be backed up just by syncing another client on another host.
• On android there is no option to select multiple folders for “Media”
  Split view browsing would realy help with file management.
  It would be nice to be able to open / preview documents on the side of the file list
  i’m unable to find a option to remove a photo from an album. it looks like there is only a delete funcion.
• On desktop sync app. i have to deselect virtual file support to be able to remove one folder from syncing.

I ended up using opencloud for now. But i might switch later if some or all of the issues is resolved.

[JimmyKater]

hello @svefro and welcome to the wonderful world of NEXTCLOUD - especially on the independent comminityforum of it. The place where volounteers are trying to help other (home-)users with their problems.

thanks for your insights… but I do have a question for you:

@svefro

I ended up using opencloud

Are you sure you’re on the correct forum? Why do I ask? Well simply because we are discussing only Nextcloud-related stuff… which is defintly not “opencloud”.

apart from that: the valid way of filing feature-requests is on Github… under the referring nextcloud-repository.

That’s the place where developer “live” (at least the are there and taking care of problems, glitches, bugs, etc).

Apart from that: Nextcloud is free to use open source. Which means: it lives from and by its community. So you can always step in to propose your own code to solve the features you just filed. Don’t be shy, just jump into it.

[bb77]

@svefro

I ended up using opencloud for now

So, OpenCloud (and OneDrive) can do everything you’ve listed here?

But yeah, sure, why not? At the end of the day, you have to use whatever suits your needs best.

Otherwise, I can only agree with what Jimmy said. It’s FOSS, and anyone can contribute in one way or another. Whether everything will be implemented the way you envision it is, of course, another matter. But it doesn’t hurt to submit proposals in the form of feature requests or, if you can, code contributions.

[svefro]

i just wanted to drop off the feedback in a hope that someday the issues i ran in to / features i miss. get resolved.

For now i’m going to switch to opencloud. I might switch to nextcloud at a later point. i’t has some good features.

[bb77]

I’d still like to briefly address your points:

@svefro

• When moving or copying files in web gui. there is no progress or retry option if operation fails. ongoing action should continue even if browser is closed.
  sometimes it actualy continues. but i can not see it anywhere. so suddenly a new folder pops upp.

‘Retry’ has never really helped me. If an operation fails due to a filesystem releated things, repeatedly clicking ‘Retry’ won’t make any difference. If it’s a performance or connection issue, you should probably address the underlying cause.

As for some kind of progress indication, I agree with you. → Feature request on GitHub, if there isn’t one already.

@svefro

• Copying a folder to another folder that contains a folder with the same name should merge the folders, not create a new one with “2” after it
  if i copy photos in to a folder named media. that also contains a folder named photos. i get photos2

Feature request on GitHub, if there isn’t one already.

@svefro

• It is not possible to drag files to the sidebar folders section to move or copy them. using the move / copy function is cumbersom
  when syncing my files i got alot of warnings that some characte

That’s because the “folders” in the sidebar aren’t actually folders in the same sense as you’d have them in a dual-pane file manager or the folder tree in Windows Explorer. They’re more like filters. But again: feature request on GitHub, if there isn’t one already. A dual-pane or tree view would probably be the way to go here.

@svefro

• It would be nice with a simple backup function that can save databases and other settings directly to a users data directory.
  This way all nextcloud settings can be backed up just by syncing another client on another host.

That’s something that could probably developed as an app. However, such an app would need to create an actual database dump, since the Nextcloud database contains more than just settings. It also contains a lot of actual data.

There used to be a Backup app, and there are also efforts around exports that can be imported into a new Nextcloud instance. But unfortunately, there isn’t really a full-fledged one-click solution that includes everything. The closest thing is probably Nextcloud AIO. It has an integrated backup solution that should make it relatively easy to migrate an AIO instance or get it running again on a new server.

@svefro

• On android there is no option to select multiple folders for “Media”
  Split view browsing would realy help with file management.

If this is primarily about photos, I can only recommend Memories and the corresponding Android app: Memories - Apps - App Store - Nextcloud

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘split-view’ in this context, though.

@svefro

• On desktop sync app. i have to deselect virtual file support to be able to remove one folder from syncing.

I’m not really familiar with that part of the desktop client, so I can’t say much about it. But I also don’t see it as a huge problem, since only the files you actually use need to be downloaded. But again: feature request on GitHub, if there isn’t one already.

[bb77]

@svefro

i just wanted to drop off the feedback in a hope that someday the issues i ran in to / features i miss. get resolved.

I’ve briefly addressed your points. But again, GitHub is the best place, for feature request.

@svefro

For now i’m going to switch to opencloud. I might switch to nextcloud at a later point. i’t has some good features.

Nextcloud has a lot of great features, but as I said, at the end of the day, everyone has to use whatever works best for them

[svefro]

I saw that the server alone had 2700 issues. so that took away my motivation.

So insted of doing all that. i selected opencloud and posted my feedback here in the hope that someone will pick it up.

[bb77]

@svefro

I saw that the server alone had 2700 issues. so that took away my motivation.

I guess that’s at least partly due to the project’s popularity.

@svefro

So insted of doing all that. i selected opencloud

Yeah, and that’s totally fine if it works for you. But to be honest, I’m a little skeptical, because a) I doubt it can do everything you’ve listed here, and b) you wouldn’t probably have posted here if you didn’t actually prefer to use Nextcloud

[tflidd]

@bb77

@svefro

• Copying a folder to another folder that contains a folder with the same name should merge the folders, not create a new one with “2” after it
  if i copy photos in to a folder named media. that also contains a folder named photos. i get photos2

Feature request on GitHub, if there isn’t one already.

And then, if there is already a file of that name, rename the file, use the newer one, ask the user every time? But that makes moving/copying slower since you need to check for every file.

@bb77

There used to be a Backup app, and there are also efforts around exports that can be imported into a new Nextcloud instance

I don’t know if there were not enough people interested in developing this further, or if for admin standard-linux tools are faster and more reliable when doing backup tasks (zipping data from lvm/zfs/btrfs-snapshots, database-dumps).

I am not sure if there was a topic on the forum or on github, to allow a user to generate a download of all his data, and then keep this as a backup (or move it e.g. to a different Nextcloud server).

The technical details can be tricky, but feel free to check out on github. You can filter by tags, to get around what are actual feature requests, which parts are affected etc.

[bb77]

Yeah, I see it pretty much the same way you do. On the other hand, I’m also a lazy bastard, so I wouldn’t mind having some kind of “Export” button somewhere that I could click, then import everything into a new instance and have it just work exactly like before.

And yeah, even though I’m not a database expert, mysqldump (or mariadb-dump, as it’s called now ) is surprisingly simple. The problem here is Nextcloud. Get the version slightly wrong, do things in the wrong order, whatever, and you can easily spend a whole day getting the thing working again.

Unless, of course, you’re a professional who does nothing but migrate applications all day. And even then, unexpected things tend to happen with these kinds of “legacy” applications (sorry, couldn’t resist), at least that’s been my experience in the places where I’ve worked and currently work.

[tflidd]

@bb77

Yeah, I see it pretty much the same way you do. On the other hand, I’m also a lazy bastard, so I wouldn’t mind having some kind of “Export” button somewhere that I could click, then import everything into a new instance and have it just work exactly like before.

Or it runs somehow on the client side that gathers all the information (to avoid timeouts). But then it’s perhaps better in the desktop client, or I don’t know browser javascript?
But then it has to work not just for your small 20 MB test account, people will complain if their 50 TB backup takes too long.

[bb77]

The problem isn’t really the files. The problem is everything else. Calendars and contacts are still relatively straightforward, but then you have all the apps, user accounts, and basically everything else that’s stored in the database.

But yeah, if you have full root access, it’s certainly doable. Although there’s another problem: over the years, Nextcloud tends to accumulate so much junk in the database that sometimes you might actually want to start fresh. If you just import a mysql dump, you’re also importing all that accumulated junk into the new instance.

But yeah, I have no idea. It’s probably not that simple, especially with all the third-party apps and everything else involved…

[jtr]

@svefro

I saw that the server alone had 2700 issues. so that took away my motivation.

Fair enough, but >800 PRs were merged in the last 30 days in that repo alone. It’s a pretty active place! And that’s where the formal work gets tracked.

[JimmyKater]

@svefro

I saw that the server alone had 2700 issues. so that took away my motivation.

did you see that 19k issues has been solved as well at the same time? That should give back some motivation to you…
I mean the ratio between open and solved issue is ~1:8. if you’d look at opencloud it’s 1:2… read it like: for every (new) issue there are 8 solved ones vs for every new issue there are only 2 solved ones. and THAT would take away MY motivation since you can see where the development is really happening.
just to give you a bit of a new perspective @svefro

but then again: if you think you’ll be better off with opencloud just use it. It seems to suit your demands better than NC and that’s really OK…

[svefro]

@JimmyKater

n to you…
I mean the ratio between open and solved issue is ~1:8. if you’d look at opencloud it’s 1:2… read it like: for every (new) issue there are 8 solved ones vs for every new issue there are only 2 solved ones. and TH

I had to switch back to Nextcloud. OpenCloud made some decisions early in its development that have made it less flexible, and it looks like they’re unwilling to change course.

For example, I wasn’t able to add external storage or configure the sync client to sync folders outside of the OpenCloud folder, among other limitations. These restrictions ultimately made it too inflexible for my needs.

So I’ll most likely end up creating some issues here, and cross my fingers that someone else finds them useful too.

And that they’re willing to implement them