I’ve only tested this on Debain on Ubuntu servers where I have full root access, and honestly I wouldn’t expect it to work on a shared web hosting space.
However, there are numerous posts here on the forum where people describe how they changed the table format on shared hosting services. Either by using tools such as phpMyAdmin, which many hosters provide, or by logging directly into the database from the command line, if the provider allows it, and running the respective commands from there.
Maybe I’m naive, but I run Nextcloud and mariadb in docker and I assume that any upgrade process should be handled by those whose image I’m using. As an end user I shouldn’t be expected to access the underlying database and enter technical commands which I don’t really understand. Every other docker image I run upgrades cleanly without throwing out database errors.
All Nextcloud Docker images, except Nextcloud AIO, are completely community driven, meaning the people who maintain them all do it in their spare time. So you might ask them nicely if they could implement something like this, or if they could give you some guidance, but they don’t owe you anything. Or even better, get involved in the project. Open source projects are not one-way streets.
Similar changes are happening in other projects as well, as recommendations and requirements can change over time as the software evolves. Of course, it depends on the specific software how often such changes happen and how easy or difficult the specific changes are for users to implement.
Nextcloud is much more versatile than your average home user product and is not primarily or exclusively aimed at home users. It can run on a single board computer with a simple SQLite database for a few users up to server farms with clustered database backends with tens of thousands of users and on almost everything in between. I don’t think enterprise users would be happy if Nextcloud automatically messed with their database configuration during an update 
This is not an error, and not a strict requirement, but rather a recommendation for optimal performance. Your Nextcloud won’t stop working if you don’t change the row format.
Standard stock response to anyone who has an issue with ‘community driven’ software. ‘Ask them nicely’ and ‘get involved yourself’ effectively means nothing other than ‘why should we bother pleasing our users if we don’t feel like it’. I’d be happy to pay to use Nextcloud as a single domestic user, but it’s either pay nothing or pay as if I were a business. Is there a way to pay so I can expect support which is not snotty and superior?
I as the user have neither created this database nor have I defined the internal structures. Who could have done that? Wouldn’t it be the responsibility of the person who issued the ‘create’ command to create the database to take care of adapting the structure if it seems sensible to change it over time?
In short: Nextcloud should do it.
JustMy2ct
How much would you be willing to pay? First of all, the typical ~$10 per month or ~$100 per year subscriptions for home users aren’t going to cut it. They can help fund development, but usually you only get community support for those sums.
Support contracts for home users are simply not sustainable, which is why no one offers actual support for home users, not even companies that sell home user products. For example, you can buy a $500 home/SOHO Synology and you won’t get any actual support. Same if you buy Unifi networking gear. Sure, you can contact them if a unit is DOA, or if it dies while still under warranty, but that’s not support, that’s the bare minimum they have to do because they sold you a physical device. Nobody is going to walk you through the setup process and help you set up an SMB share or tweak your Wi-Fi experience. You have their documentation (which in the case of UniFi is virtually non-existent) and you have forums as a home user.
The same goes for popular home software products such as Immich or Proxmox VE. For the former, there is only community support available, meaning that if you pay you are only paying to support the developers, for the latter, support contracts start at €355/year for 3 support tickets/year and CPU socket (response time: 1 business day).
Of course, you can also pay an IT service provider, but be prepared to pay at least $200-300/hour if you find one that services home users. Or you can post here in the Freelance section and maybe someone will contact you and do the database migration for you.
Well, what can I say? I’m also just a home user and not affiliated with Nextcloud in any way, and I said a few weeks ago when this came up that it would be nice if Nextcloud at least offered an optional script to change the line format, and even yesterday I admitted that it would be nice if they didn’t leave the user completely alone with a link to dev.mysql.com.
But I can’t endorse the attitude of entitlement that comes across in your post and others like it. And even if you don’t like to hear it, there are probably good reasons why, from Nextcloud’s point of view, this shouldn’t be done automatically. And from the point of view of the Nextcloud Docker project, which is entirely community driven and whose goal is not to develop additional helper tools, but simply to provide Nextcloud with its existing feature set as Docker images, this would be an additional effort that is probably beyond the scope of their project. Besides, I don’t want to know what your reaction would be if they provided such a script and it somehow broke your installation
You totally miss my point. I’m suggesting that this sort of database problem shouldn’t be an issue that the end user has to try and sort out, particularly when it is a docker image we’re talking about. You are effectively advocating a lack of responsibility to the end user just because the product has no charge. If I volunteer to work for a charity I am not automatically absolved from any accountability.
I’m not suggesting free support, all I’m saying is this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, then support would not be necessary.
Get off your high horse and look at it from the point of view of the end user.
Here is the same answer as above, again exclusively for you, because I really have nothing more to say. Oh, and by the way, I expect one of those stupid LOL emoticons for this post as well. Otherwise I’ll be disappointed. ;-p
Clearly you are happy with glitchy software where there is no payment involved. I am not. I have standards which apply whether I’m financially recompensed or not. It’s sad that you feel certain standards apply only where money is exchanged. End of. I’m happy to provide a silly emoticon for your delectation.
Clearly you’ve never dealt with self-hosted products from the big boys like Microsoft, otherwise you’d know that it’s perfectly possible to pay a s**** ton of money and still have a glitchy product, and I mean actual bugs, not some planned change as in this case.
(Disclaimer: I have not, but I know people who do it for a living.)
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that, as I think we’ve both made our points.
This worked perfectly for me, thank you.
@lxto thank you! Worked perfectly for me …
Thanks for providing this. Worked great for me.
Took about 5-10 minutes to complete after hitting enter. No feedback from the command line during that time.
Thanks, this worked brilliantly <3
Thanks for that script that solve, also for me, the same problem.
Just a tip if you copy/paste the code from Windows in a text file and then transfer it to Linux to execute it : there is potential issue with encoding CR/LF (I had that problem)… So better to open for example nano and copy / paste from the browser into Linux Nano directly.
I agree with some others : nextcloud must slow down all that upgrade to make better code and avoid that kind of problem.
That is very stressful to have to modify the database, even when Nextcloud (and MariaDB) are in container in a Proxmox server !
I am not using a docker image but have an old installation that I upgraded year after year, and had the same issue (solved thanks by the script provided here).
I tried executing the script, but when I do, I get this message:
Can you please assist?
How did you install Nextcloud, on which operating system and which MariaDB or MySQL version are you using?
I’m on Unraid Version 7.0.1 2025-02-25
Both Nextcloud and MariaDB are installed as linuxserver dockers
Nextcloud Version - Nextcloud Hub 10 (31.0.4)
And I’m not sure why, but my WebUI for MariaDB is not working… So I don’t know how to check MariaDB version, but it is auto-updated and when I right click the container and go to “More info”, it pops up a github page that says: mariadb 11.4.5-r0-ls181
I’m sorry, I’m not an advanced user, I just followed youtube tutorials to set this all up.
EDIT: I found some issues in MariaDB logs, and I followed the steps to remedy them and update the database. Now the issues are not showing up in logs, but WebUI is still not accessible.