Hi everyone 
This post is a very condensed summary about a solution a colleague and I found concerning shared folders after a Nextcloud migration. I write this post hoping it will help people like me desperatly trying to solve the issue of broken shares after a migration.
While it is not the only possible cause, it solved my issue and it may solve yours as well.
Details :
Nextcloud version : 28.0.3.2
Operating system and version : Debian 12
Apache version : 2.4.57
PHP version : 8.2
The issue you are facing :
Migrating the nextcloud instance left all of our shared folders broken (for normal shares and public links) or empty (for shared folders inside group folders).
Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? : N
Steps to replicate it :
- On server 1 : export database as per the Nextcloud documentation, send everything to server 2.
- On server 2 : import the database and place everything where it is supposed to be with the right permissions. Except for one thing : use another path for the data directory.
- Realize the new instance is working well except for shared items. Try to access a shared file or folder that was shared before the migration.
- Cry.
Solution :
Ensure the data directory location remains the same on the new server.
Example : /opt/nextcloud/data on the original server should remain /opt/nextcloud/data on the new server.