Hello,
if Android battery saver mode is enabled and/or unrestricted background usage disabled, Nextcloud sync on Android client will completely refuse to work even on manual triggering:
- Menu ā Uploads: lists new file(s), but hints: āWaiting to exit power save modeā.
- Settings ā Auto upload ā Toggle of custom folder: shows āYour device may have battery optimization enabled. AutoUpload works only properly if you exclude this app from it.ā
Iād be curious: Is there any technical reason for this limiting behavior? To my knowledge, manual triggering should be possible at all times, regardless of battery optimizations.
Nextcloud Android v3.31.1
It will āworkā with Battery Saving mode enabled, but battery saving mode typically limits or outright shuts off background activity, so automatic uploads, which relies on being on in the background, just wonāt work.
In other terms, the Battery Saving modes make it so Nextcloud canāt run in the background, which it needs to do in order to do automatic uploads.
Thanks for the reply @Xylerfox ,
hm but even if I keep the app opened/in foreground, and trigger a sync process manually (Menu ā Uploads ā pause and un-pause again), Nextcloud refuses to even start. Despite feature being called āautoā-upload, I have hoped to at least trigger it manually with battery save mode enabled.
Or is this not possible at all, as it always runs in background?
Iāve noticed lately the syncing feature being weird, especially on my Samsung phone.
Before, my phone would immediately upload files the moment I turned the feature on, but lately it takes a while, sometimes hours, for the sync to happen. Iām not sure if itās Android related or NextCloud related at this point, but Iāve had some issues.
However, I honestly would just add NextCloud as an exception to battery saving features. Since it doesnāt actually take up any battery life on its own, itās useful to add it as an exception.
Iād like to share my experience, as I was dealing with a very similar issue.
I also have a Samsung phone and Iām currently using the Nextcloud Android client version 3.31.1, but with an important difference ā I installed it via F-Droid.
When I previously used the version from Google Play, I had the exact same problem with synchronization. The app simply wouldnāt sync reliably, especially when battery optimization was enabled ā and even sometimes outside of that.
If I remember correctly, Google introduced certain restrictions that directly affected apps running in the background, particularly those accessing the file system. It seems that these changes negatively impacted the Play Store version of the Nextcloud app.
Since switching to the F-Droid version, which apparently isnāt bound by the same limitations, synchronization has been working flawlessly.
I definitely recommend trying the F-Droid version if youāre experiencing issues with auto-upload or background sync.
You probably mean the ābackground usageā exception for apps with Optimized/Unrestricted value. I am using the Android āBattery Saverā / power saver and to my knowledge there is no ability to add exceptions to it (please correct anyone otherwise).
With battery save, you always get "Waiting to exit power save modeā, before Nextcloud sync starts.This means I would need to completely turn off this feature saver only to use Nextcloud.
To give a positive counter-example: Syncthing on Android provides a toggle to manually start sync given power save mode. Itās called āForce start ignore run conditionsā.
Also using F-Droid 
.
I think Unhappy with the recently lost file upload feature in the Nextcloud app for Android? So are we. Let us explain. sounds like it was your issue. This one might be orthogonal to it.
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I was having a similar issue. I unistalled Playstore version. Installed F-Droid + Nextcloud. Unfortunately I still had issues (With Samsung Galaxy phone), particularly trying to pause / start sync in the āUploadsā section (application crashed). So uninstalled, F-Droid verison, re-installed play version, and it started to work OK again (uploading camera photos to Instant Upload folder (in my case). So it seems a little buggyā¦ I guess due to phone company battery saving issues.