I had all my files fully synced to my PC (not virtual/on-demand files). Previously, they were only virtually synced.
I then deselected one folder in the desktop client so it would no longer sync and waited for Nextcloud to finish processing the change.
After that, I removed the external storage folder from Nextcloud.
The sync client immediately went crazy. It hung indefinitely, continuously hammered the disk, and generated an error list from here to the moon.
So I stopped Nextcloud, deleted the folder locally, and started it again. The result was the same: endless hangs, constant disk activity, and complaints about files that weren’t even in that folder.
I stopped Nextcloud again.
Then I noticed that the folder I had disabled syncing for had reappeared.
When I tried to open it, Windows reported:
“The cloud file provider is not running.”
I deleted the folder and restarted Nextcloud.
It immediately hung and became unresponsive.
I quickly unlinked Nextcloud from the PC after restarting the software.
Then I noticed the folder I had stopped syncing had reappeared again.
Trying to open it gave the same error:
“The cloud file provider is not running.”
I deleted it.
Waited a bit.
The folder reappeared again.
Tried opening it:
“The cloud file provider is not running.”
Deleted it again.
I then ran WinDirStat, which reported roughly 430 GB of unknown disk usage.
At this point, I’m running various console commands trying to reclaim the disk space.
In the last year, Nextcloud has been the biggest piece of software garbage I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with.
I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that is the unfortunate truth.
It’s disappointing because I haven’t found any other self-hosted solution that meets my requirements. If there were a realistic alternative that fit my needs, I would have moved away from Nextcloud. And im considering going back to onedrive.
Compared to nextcloud, Onedrive a magnificent peace of software.
Now, I most likley have to format my drive to reclaim the space.