Nextcloud installation dead, due to missing simplexml_load_file function

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Some or all of the below information will be requested if it isn’t supplied; for fastest response please provide as much as you can :heart:

Nextcloud version (eg, 20.0.5): 19.0.0
Operating system and version (eg, Ubuntu 20.04): Ubuntu 16.04
Apache or nginx version (eg, Apache 2.4.25): Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu)
PHP version (eg, 7.4): 7.4

The issue you are facing:

Installation dead, due to following error:

Error: Call to undefined function OC\App\simplexml_load_file() at /var/www/nextcloud/lib/private/App/InfoParser.php#65 2021-04-08T22:30:49+00:00

Note that I have uninstalled and re-installed php-simplexml and php-xml and checked all version numbers (7.4)

Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Y/N): Y

Steps to replicate it:

  1. sudo -u www-data php occ log:watch
  2. access any nextcloud page with browser

The output of your Nextcloud log in Admin > Logging:

NO ACCESS

The output of your config.php file in /path/to/nextcloud (make sure you remove any identifiable information!):

<?php
$CONFIG = array (
  'debug' => true,
  'instanceid' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'passwordsalt' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'secret' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'trusted_domains' =>
  array (
    0 => 'rednoise.org',
  ),
  'datadirectory' => '/var/www/nextcloud/data',
  'overwrite.cli.url' => 'https://server/nextcloud',
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '19.0.0.12',
  'dbname' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'dbhost' => 'localhost',
  'dbport' => '',
  'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
  'dbuser' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'dbpassword' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'installed' => true,
  'mail_from_address' => 'xxxxxxxxx',
  'mail_smtpmode' => 'php',
  'mail_smtpauthtype' => 'xxxxx',
  'mail_domain' => 'xxxxxxxx',
  'maintenance' => false,
  'data-fingerprint' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx',
  'loglevel' => 2,
);

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

58.153.66.116 - - [08/Apr/2021:18:37:00 -0400] "GET /nextcloud/ HTTP/1.1" 500 644 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:87.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/87.0"
58.153.66.116 - daniel [08/Apr/2021:18:37:13 -0400] "GET /nextcloud/status.php HTTP/1.1" 200 3684 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh) mirall/2.3.3 (build 84) (Nextcloud)"


Did you try a package with version: php7.4-xml

Is there a reason to use NC 19.0.0? Minor updates include bug fixes and security fixes and should be installed (Changelog – Nextcloud). No new features are added and no depencies change, so there is little risk of breaking something.
Major upgrade (to NC 20) can be more tricky, new features, third-party apps that might not run (yet), other dependencies, …
But that is independent from your problem.

yes, tried that several times. with the same error

I will update to the most recent 19, but, as you say, seems a separate issue

I’m at a loss how to proceed and I now have a fully dead Nextcloud installation.

I’m thinking that I will need to install the latest Nextcloud version and basically start over.

Can someone please point me toward a step-by-step on how to extract the data from the dead v19 instance (it is also synced to various programs on my laptop client: mail, calendar, contacts, etc.), and import it into a fresh Nextcloud install?