Hello Nextcloud Community,
I am experiencing extremely persistent and unusual issues with external storage (SMB/CIFS) configuration and display, which has affected two different Nextcloud installations (Snap and Docker) on my Ubuntu server. I’m hoping to get some insight or a solution from the community, as I’ve exhausted standard troubleshooting.
My primary goal is to connect Nextcloud to a CIFS/SMB share located on a Windows Server 2019.
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The Basics
- Nextcloud Server version:
31.0.6.2 - Operating system and version:
Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat) - Command Line Interface (CLI) only - Web server and version:
Apache 2.4.62 (Debian)(running inside Docker container) - Reverse proxy and version:
None(Accessing directly via IP) - PHP version:
8.3.22(running inside Docker container) - Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Yes / No):
Yes, for this specific setup and its persistent nature. - When did this problem seem to first start?:
Immediately after fresh installation of Nextcloud (both Snap and Docker versions) upon attempting to configure external storage. - Installation method:
Docker Compose(Previously attempted with Nextcloud Snap, encountering similar issues.) - Are you using Cloudflare, mod_security, or similar?:
No
Summary of the issue you are facing:
I am consistently unable to configure or view external storage within Nextcloud. The “Administration settings → External storages” page displays as blank (no input fields or table to add/list storage), and attempts to configure via occ commands either result in errors or do not make the external storage contents visible. This issue persisted across both a Nextcloud Snap installation and the current Nextcloud Docker Compose installation.
My primary goal is to connect to a CIFS/SMB share hosted on a Windows Server 2019 at 192.168.1.10 with share name Client Files Server .
Steps to replicate it:
- Start with a clean installation of Ubuntu Server 24.04 (CLI).
- Install Docker Engine and Docker Compose Plugin following official Docker documentation.
- Deploy Nextcloud using
docker-compose.yml(MariaDB + Nextcloud imagenextcloud:latest).
db.envcontent (sanitized):
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=<sanitized_db_root_password>
MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
MYSQL_USER=nextcloud
MYSQL_PASSWORD=<sanitized_db_password>
docker-compose.ymlcontent:
version: '3'
services:
db:
image: mariadb:10.6
command: --transaction-isolation=READ-COMMITTED --binlog-format=ROW
restart: always
volumes:
- db:/var/lib/mysql
env_file:
- db.env
networks:
- nextcloud-net
app:
image: nextcloud:latest
restart: always
ports:
- 80:80
volumes:
- nextcloud:/var/www/html
# Host-side CIFS mount (was attempted here, but later removed)
# - /mnt/nextcloud_files:/mnt/nextcloud_cifs_in_docker
env_file:
- db.env
environment:
MYSQL_HOST: db
NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS: localhost 127.0.0.1 192.168.1.250 nextcloud.mxprivate.top
depends_on:
- db
networks:
- nextcloud-net
volumes:
db:
nextcloud:
networks:
nextcloud-net:
driver: bridge
- Access the Nextcloud web UI via
http://192.168.1.250, complete the initial administrator and database setup. - Navigate to “Administration settings” → “Apps” and confirm “External storage” app (
files_external) is enabled. - Go to “Administration settings” → “External storages”. The page consistently displays as blank, showing “No external storage configured or you don’t have the permission to configure them”, with no input fields or table to add/list storage . (Screenshot available if needed, showing the blank UI).
Detailed Troubleshooting History & Further Symptoms:
- Initial Attempt (Nextcloud Snap on Ubuntu 24.04):
- Experienced the exact same blank “External storages” UI.
- Also encountered “chmod: changing permissions of ‘/tmp/pids’: Operation not permitted” and “home directories outside of /home needs configuration” errors during
occ files:scan, stemming from Snap’s confinement andwww-data's home directory not being under/home. This led to the decision to switch to Docker.
- CIFS Host Mount & Docker Bind-Mount Issues (Docker Compose on Ubuntu 24.04):
- Attempted to mount CIFS share on the Ubuntu host and bind-mount it into the Docker container.
fstabexample (original and modified during troubleshooting)://192.168.1.10/Client\040Files\040Server /mnt/nextcloud_files cifs credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials,uid=www-data,gid=www-data,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0770,dir_mode=0770,vers=default,acl,nofail,x-systemd.automount 0 0(Also tested withuid=0,gid=0,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777, and addingnounix,vers=3.0options.)sudo ls -ld /mnt/nextcloud_fileson host consistently showed correct ownership and permissions (e.g.,drwxrwx--- www-data www-dataordrwxrwxrwx root root).- However,
docker exec --user www-data nextcloud-docker-app-1 ls -l /mnt/nextcloud_cifs_in_dockerconsistently showedtotal 0(empty), indicating the contents of the CIFS mount were not propagating into the Docker container’s bind mount . This was the root cause of files not appearing, regardless of Nextcloud UI.
occ files_external:createforlocalstorage (bind-mounted):- Command:
docker exec --user www-data nextcloud-docker-app-1 php occ files_external:create "Client_Files" local null::null --config "datadir=/mnt/nextcloud_cifs_in_docker" --user="administrator" - Result:
storage created id 1(success). - Nextcloud “Files” app shows
Client_Filesfolder, but it is empty (due to the bind-mount propagation problem).
- Command:
occ files_external:createforsmb(direct connect) failures:- Confirmed
files_external_sambaapp is not a separate downloadable app for Nextcloud 31.0.6.2 (it’s integrated intofiles_external). docker exec --user www-data nextcloud-docker-app-1 php occ app:listshowsfiles_external: 1.15.0(enabled).- Attempts to use
occ app:enable files_external_sambaresulted in “could not download app files_external_samba”, even though container network connectivity and DNS are confirmed working (docker exec ... curl http://example.comreturns HTML). - Write permissions in
/var/www/html/appsare confirmed (touchcommand works). docker exec --user www-data nextcloud-docker-app-1 php occ files_external:backendsoutput confirmssmbis a storage backend (identifier: smb) andpassword::logincredentialsis an auth backend.- Multiple attempts to create the SMB share via
occ files_external:createusing provided SMB credentials (username: “Nextcloud SMB user”, password: “Ryan2014”) failed with varying errors, indicating a syntax/parsing issue for passing host/share/user/password parameters directly viaoccfor SMB. Example failed commands:docker exec ... files_external:create "SMB_Share" smb password::logincredentials --config "host=192.168.1.10" --config "share=Client Files Server" --config "user=Nextcloud SMB user" --config "password=Ryan2014" --user="administrator"→Unknown configuration for backends "user"docker exec ... files_external:create "SMB_Share" smb password::logincredentials "192.168.1.10" "Client Files Server" "Nextcloud SMB user" "Ryan2014" --user="administrator"→Too many arguments to "files_external:create" command, expected arguments "mount_point" "storage_backend" "authentication_backend".
- Confirmed
Log entries
Nextcloud
(Note: Full log output is omitted here for brevity in this document. I will provide the entire raw nextcloud.log content on the actual forum post if requested, or link to a pastebin/gist. The log generally shows INFO/DEBUG messages and deprecation warnings, but no critical errors directly related to files_external or UI rendering during troubleshooting attempts.)
Example relevant log line:
{"reqId":"QYX7FRz0ad0LpkHL9YZl","level":0,"time":"2025-06-18T21:57:07+00:00","remoteAddr":"192.168.1.27","user":"administrator","app":"settings","method":"GET","url":"/settings/ajax/checksetup","message":"Can not connect to local server for running setup checks","userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/133.0.0.0 Safari/537.36","exception":{"Exception":"GuzzleHttp\\Exception\\ConnectException","Message":"cURL error 7: Failed to connect to 192.168.1.250 port 443 after 0 ms: Couldn't connect to server (see https://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html) for https://192.168.1.250/data/.ncdata","Code":0,"Trace":[...]}}
Console output (no red errors, only warnings):
[NC] core: Clipboard API not available, using clipboardfallback.js:13 (Warning)
[SJS] DEBUG: Heartbeat polling started session-heartbeat.js:13 (Debug message)
Deprecated feature used: unload event listeners are deprecated and will be removed core-common.js:1 (Warning)
Web server / Reverse Proxy
(Note: Full web server logs from inside the Docker container are omitted here for brevity. They show normal Apache access logs (HTTP 200 OK for page loads) and no critical errors related to serving the external storage UI. The Apache FQDN warning is present but not related to the issue.)
Example log line:
192.168.1.27 - - [18/Jun/2025:21:35:30 +0000] "GET /settings/user/externalstorages HTTP/1.1" 200 12774 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/133.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
Configuration
Nextcloud
<?php
$CONFIG = array (
'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/',
'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu',
'apps_paths' =>
array (
0 =>
array (
'path' => '/var/www/html/apps',
'url' => '/apps',
'writable' => false,
),
1 =>
array (
'path' => '/var/www/html/custom_apps',
'url' => '/custom_apps',
'writable' => true,
),
),
'upgrade.disable-web' => true,
'instanceid' => 'ocfmboq73mxd',
'passwordsalt' => '<SANITIZED_PASSWORDSALT>',
'secret' => '<SANITIZED_SECRET>',
'trusted_domains' =>
array (
0 => '192.168.1.250',
),
'datadirectory' => '/var/www/html/data',
'dbtype' => 'mysql',
'version' => '31.0.6.2',
'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://192.168.1.250',
'dbname' => 'nextcloud',
'dbhost' => 'db',
'dbport' => '',
'dbtableprefix' => 'oc_',
'mysql.utf8mb4' => true,
'dbuser' => 'nextcloud',
'dbpassword' => '<SANITIZED_DB_PASSWORD>',
'installed' => true,
'maintenance' => false,
);
Apps
# Output of docker exec --user www-data nextcloud-docker-app-1 php occ app:list
Enabled apps:
- activity: 2.21.0
- audioplayer: 4.1.0
- autofill: 1.0.0
- bruteforcesettings: 2.1.0
- calendar: 5.3.0
- circles: 24.0.0
- cloud_federation_api: 1.12.0
- comments: 2.15.0
- contacts: 5.6.0
- contactsinteraction: 1.11.0
- cookbook: 0.16.0
- dashboard: 7.7.0
- dav: 2.25.0
- deck: 1.13.0
- federatedfilesharing: 1.15.0
- federation: 1.15.0
- files: 2.18.0
- files_external: 1.15.0 (This is the "External storage" app)
- files_pdfviewer: 2.10.0
- files_reminders: 1.5.0
- files_rightclick: 1.10.0
- files_trashbin: 1.15.0
- files_versions: 1.18.0
- files_videoplayer: 1.14.0
- firstrunwizard: 2.17.0
- forms: 2.4.0
- groupfolders: 15.1.0
- logreader: 2.10.0
- lookup_server_connector: 1.13.0
- mail: 3.8.0
- metadata: 0.1.0
- nextcloud_announcements: 1.14.0
- notifications: 2.14.0
- oauth2: 1.13.0
- password_policy: 1.15.0
- photos: 2.2.0
- privacy: 1.10.0
- provisioning_api: 1.15.0
- recommendations: 2.1.0
- related_resources: 1.0.0
- richdocuments: 8.6.0
- serverinfo: 1.15.0
- settings: 1.0.0
- sharebymail: 1.15.0
- sharing: 2.10.0
- spreed: 20.0.0
- survey_client: 1.10.0
- systemtags: 1.15.0
- text: 3.10.0
- theming: 1.16.0
- twofactor_backupcodes: 1.14.0
- updatenotification: 1.15.0
- user_external: 1.15.0
- user_ldap: 1.15.0
- user_status: 1.3.0
- viewer: 1.9.0
- weather_status: 1.3.0
- workflowengine: 2.10.0
Disabled apps:
- app_api: 1.2.0
- user_key_manager: 1.0.0
- user_oidc: 1.15.0