There are folders that were not synchronized because they are external storages

ℹ️ Support 💬 Talk (spreed)
,
1

Hello everyone,

I am encountering a persistent problem in my Nextcloud environment and I am reaching out for possible help or suggestions. For some time now, on Windows clients, I frequently receive the error message: “There are folders that were not synchronized because they are external storages.” This issue prevents automatic synchronization between the client and server, requiring me to manually intervene each time to clear the notification.

Environment details:

  • Nextcloud server version: www-apps/nextcloud-19.0.3
  • Other relevant server configurations:
    • app-admin/webapp-config-1.55-r3
    • dev-php/pecl-imagick-3.7.0-r3
    • virtual/httpd-php-8.2

Nextcloud has been stable and functioning for many years, and this issue on Windows clients is a recent phenomenon. All clients are updated to the latest available version. I do not encounter this problem on macOS clients, which makes the situation even more perplexing.

Has anyone else experienced a similar issue or knows how I might proceed to resolve or further diagnose this problem? Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support and any responses.

2

hi @Gianmarco_Cremonini welcome to the community :handshake:

I’m not sure how you

as the problem is clearly named. The client doesn’t sync huge and external storage folders by default “forever”… there is a button or checkbox in a client to sync external storages:

image
from: Visual Tour — Nextcloud Client Manual 3.12.3 documentation

with client 3.12 it looks little different:
image
but still very easy to spot.

In general I would strongly recommend to update your system. Nextcloud version 19 is out of support since years and php82 is deprecated now.

3

After exploring various complex solutions and considering different technical aspects, the answer turned out to be surprisingly simple: removing the “Ask to confirmation before synchronizing external storage” flag. Despite our thorough considerations, this particular detail had completely escaped us.

I want to express my sincere thanks to all of you in the community, particularly to Willi Weikum, for your support and shared ideas. Your help was crucial in guiding me toward the correct solution.

1 Like