One particular Excel file will not sync changes

Nextcloud version (eg, 18.0.2): 19.0.4
Operating system and version (eg, Ubuntu 20.04): CentOS 7
Apache or nginx version (eg, Apache 2.4.25): Apache 2.4.46
PHP version (eg, 7.1): 7.3.24

The issue you are facing: When I try to sync one particular Excel file, it returns this error:

Server replied “403 Forbidden” to “MOVE https://oursite/nextcloud/index.php/apps/files” (skipped due to earlier error, trying again in nn seconds)

However, it’s only this one spreadsheet. If I put another spreadsheet in the same folder, it works fine. But if I move this spreadsheet to another folder, it fails there, too. I’ve renamed the file, and that didn’t help. I’ve checked the permissions in Nextcloud and on my Mac, and they’re the same as for other files that work.

I can upload the file to any folder, delete it from any folder. But if I try to change it, or a duplicate of it with another name, I see the above error.

I have absolutely no idea how to troubleshoot an issue that seems to arise with only one file.

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

Steps to replicate it:

  1. Upload this one particular Excel file to any folder in our cloud
  2. Open the file and make a change
  3. Save the changes

The output of your Nextcloud log in Admin > Logging:

[no app in context] Debug: Deprecated event type for OCP\IPreview:PreviewRequested: Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\GenericEvent

GET /nextcloud/index.php/apps/files/api/v1/thumbnail/150/150/Top%20Level%20Folder/My%20Folder/The%20Flakey%20Spreadsheet.xlsx
from 12.34.56.78 by myuser at 2020-11-17T17:05:57+00:00

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

$CONFIG = array (
  'dbtype' => 'mysql',
  'version' => '19.0.4.2',
  'logtimezone' => 'UTC',
  'installed' => true,
  'theme' => '',
  'loglevel' => 0,
  'maintenance' => false,
  'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
  'memcache.locking' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis',
  'redis' => 
  array (
    'host' => 'localhost',
    'port' => 6379,
  ),
   'mysql.utf8mb4' => true,
);

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

This file is huge, and I don’t believe it’s relevant—I couldn’t find any references to our cloud folder, nor to this particular file, anywhere in the log.

If i guessed it correctly from this:

[no app in context] Debug: **Deprecated** event type for **OCP\IPreview:PreviewRequested**: Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\GenericEvent

your nextcloud uses the preview generator (which is fine).

Maybe, your thumbnail for the folder with your excel inside has a problem with you changing the document. To be more precise: with your preview request for the 150x150 thumbnail of your excel sheet.

Maybe try the following:

  1. (Optional) Move your excel outside of this folder.
  2. Rescan the needed user directories with the preview generator
preview:generate-all [user-id]

This could take a long time, depending on your amount of data and the hardware.

You might also want to look into this, if you have further questions on commands:

Another way would be to simply delete all generated previews and let them be rescanned.
Your folder might be somewhere else or called differently, but my previews are here:


But i did never do this and i don’t know if this is the best idea. In theory this could work.
But be aware, that the previews are quite important to browse your photos and other stuff that has to load in big directories a lot easier. I would not suggest this.

But if this really is your issue, than it might be recuring. I think there might be a way to prevent the preview generator from previewing documents like excel or word.

Thanks for the suggestion … that app didn’t sound familiar, so I checked: We don’t have it active, and I don’t think it’s ever been installed.

Not sure where to go from here—but again, thanks for the thought!

Ok. I don’t know how nextcloud is working with nativ thumbnails, so i’m out of ideas.

You could of course just switch to using the preview generator app. This is likely to replace the old thumbnails (my guess). Also using this preview generator would speed up your browsing experience.

Here is a guide, that helped me a lot in improving my nextcloudsetup: