The community help forum (help.nextcloud.com) is for home and non-enterprise users. Support is provided by other community members on a best effort / āas availableā basis. All of those responding are volunteering their time to help you.
If youāre using Nextcloud in a business/critical setting, paid and SLA-based support services can be accessed via portal.nextcloud.com where Nextcloud engineers can help ensure your business keeps running smoothly.
Getting help
In order to help you as efficiently (and quickly!) as possible, please fill in as much of the below requested information as you can.
Before clicking submit: Please check if your query is already addressed via the following resources:
(Utilizing these existing resources is typically faster. It also helps reduce the load on our generous volunteers while elevating the signal to noise ratio of the forums otherwise arising from the same queries being posted repeatedly).
Hi
Sorry for the harsh subject, but itās a little frustarting that when you really need a file that is on NexCloud you get one of the most useless errors:
Basically itās actually 3-4 .js files - yes i know that someone would say that this is the way that NextCloud is handeling files⦠but here is my point
The folder from where I get the error was copied from my Mac to the NextCloud āfolderā with no errors what so ever, so why do I get errors when I copy from NextCloud folder to a normal folder ?
Frankly put: this rant is not useful either in this form. I understand your frustrating experience and am sorry for it.
What exact steps did you attempt to do?
What does your client environment on macOS look like?
What expectation do you have in context of this post?
Based on your account history, you are familiar with opening issues on GitHub. I kindly ask you to report this problem with details in our desktop client issue tracker so we become enabled to act on it and resolve the problem.
I am familiar with this generic error message which usually bubbles up from the lower levels of macOS we use and it does not originate from our code on top of that. However, I have not observed this to surface in Finder itself yet.
Honestly, you have a topic here, a developer instantly answers your topic demanding for more details, most would happily provide these to get their issue fixed.
I get blamed for being rude, and IMO, itās pretty clear what Iām trying to do:
Iām accessing a file and getting an error that is not very helpful, no log, nothing.
I have in the past created an issue on GitHub on the fact that NextCloud delete your data if you connect the Nextcloud to a directory that contains files - no action for about 4 months
I know itās free software, but that does not mean that one cannot say out loud that there is an issue.
But I will help myself and delete my account, close the fatalt isssue on Github and let people loos their data - no problem, Iāll find another solution.
My interpretation is it is a macOS-Problem, not one of the NC-Client-Code,
So i have another option for you how to deal with this problem:
Instead of stopping the use of NC-Client and Server, you should just take your MacBook, throw it out of the window of the tallest building you can find onto the street (without hitting any passers-by, though), so that it smashes to pieces. Then buy a laptop without an operating system and install a proper OS on it that doesnāt have these kinds of problems ā Linux !!!
To see if I need to create a real issue or if there already is asolution
even if it is a error that bubles up, it is coming from a action performed my the NextCloud Clinet e.g āOpen a fileā. or copy a file - I was catually copying a folder with many subfolders from NextCloud, and found out that 4 files continued to have a small 'cloudā icon - which I belive comes from NextCloud Client - and these 4 files all give the same error - they are all physically on the NextCloud server
I have never seen this error in ICloud, Google Drive, One Drive, DropBox or directly from a share on my NAS, so the natural thing is to suspect the NextCloud client
I suspect you are talking about Virtual Files. Is that true?
If so it means: On Windows, the client uses the Windows Cloud Files API, and on macOS, it relies on Appleās File Provider Extension (FPE). Both are technologies provided natively by the respective operating systems.
As far as I am aware, there is no equivalent for Linux. Therefore, Linux cannot have a problem based on that.
In the case of files that are also stored locally on the client computer, I cannot see why there should be a problem with the client if these files are copied from directory A (synchronised with the server via the client) to directory B (not synchronised). The NC client would not be involved at all.
Iām accessing a file and getting an error that is not very helpful, no log, nothing.
@anon62458244 This is one of the most basic test cases and there is no known problem in general with this. Otherwise we would have drowned in customer and community feedback by now. It must be a different factor. Similar to Nextcloud server, where most problems arise from people deploying it in creative or differently opinionated ways instead of the official recommendations.
You can gain insight into the logs by exporting the client log archive from the app settings. Actually, those are the ones we always ask for in support cases by our customers to gain insights on what happened.
I have in the past created an issue on GitHub on the fact that NextCloud delete your data if you connect the Nextcloud to a directory that contains files - no action for about 4 months
I assume you mean this one because it is the only one filed by you in our desktop client repository:
It is about a completely different topic and unrelated to this forum topic. You also did not use the proper bug template which increases visibility and eases management. My colleague requested additional information from you which you did not provide. We cannot progress under such circumstances. And why did you close it now?
I know itās free software, but that does not mean that one cannot say out loud that there is an issue.
It being free or open source is irrelevant. The problem is that the form of expression is not constructive. We cannot work on such feedback without more technical details or cooperation. I have been frustrated with software and computers in general often enough, too, so I get the sentiment. However, that does not solve any problem.
my NAS, so the natural thing is to suspect the NextCloud client
Getting back to the actual topic, this is an important factor. These are the important details. Are there network drives mounted in macOS and part of the whole process?
copy a file
From where to where?
To see if I need to create a real issue or if there already is asolution
As mentioned earlier, the basic file operations work fine in the conventional use cases.
On Windows, the client uses the Windows Cloud Files API, and on macOS, it relies on Appleās File Provider Extension (FPE). Both are technologies provided natively by the respective operating systems.
As far as I am aware, there is no equivalent for Linux. Therefore, Linux cannot have a problem based on that.
@adelaar This is true. While the topic of a cloud storage integration is in discussion internally and with other open source projects, there is single standardized API for it. GNOME and KDE have their own offerings for this concept.
There is also a client in the Fedora repository, Flathub / Flatpacks
I used the Finder to copy the files to the āNextCloudā folder and when copying from the NextCloud folder I get the error.
On windows it is even worse - I have a VM running Windows 11, for work, and I have the NextCould client installed, and there the sync fails due āinvalid characterā in a file name - no, it does not only fail for the file(s), but all other files cannot be synched due to this
if it is a virtual file, then IMO, it have everything to do with the client.
I have a folder on my Mac, I then have a Next cloud folder, I then copy via finder from my Mac foler to the NextCloud folder, not network, nothing simple copy from Mac to Nextcloud, now I want to copy the fiels from Nextcloud to another folder on my Mac and I get the error
My point about the NAS is that I have never seen this error berfore, not with shareder drive on on my NAS, not with ICloud, Not with One Drive, only Next Cloud.
I replied the same day as your colleguea asked for information, if he did not get what i he asked for, then maybe he should be ask again - and he did not for 4 months, so to me that indicate that nothing will ever happen, so no need to have a open issue.
i also have Windows 11 25H2 for testing purposes as Dual Boot on one of my Linux laptops. I just did what you say will not work on your Windows 11.
I created two folders named āVirtual Filesā on my NC-Server and on the WIndows laptop. Then i add this folders for a new sync and marked it as use Virtual Files.
Then i copied some different files from a standard Windows folder into this āVirtual Filesā and from there back into another standard WIndows folder.
What shall i say: all was done as expected. No error messages. No problems.
The NC-Client i did use was 33.0.2 and my Server is a self hosted Debian 12 with NC 32.0.8 (no AIO, no snap)
Well Linux allows folder and file names with characterās not allowed at Windows-File systems. Thats a well known problem on Dual-Boot systems if a NTFS or exFAT partition is shared with both OS, Windows and Linux. This is for sure also a problem with files synced between WIndows and Linux and likely also between Windows and macOS.
Oh and there may be also another issue:
The maximum path length in Windows (including the folder structure and filename) is 260 characters by default (MAX_PATH). The actual filename may be up to 255 characters long. If the 260-character limit is exceeded, errors often occur when copying or opening files