Windows client only syncs with one account at a time

📱 Desktop & mobile clients 💻 Desktop
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1

Hi,

I have two Nextcloud accounts connected in Windows 11 client, one server is self-hosted on local LAN and the other instance is on the net, I just created one with Librecloud. There is plenty of network and disk bandwidth to handle two servers. Librecloud is actually quite slow. I have 300Mbps upload and Librecloud does measly ~10-20Mbps. I sync two different windows source folders, of course. Both folders are on PCI SSD. Upload and Download Limits are set to “No Limit” for both servers. There are no proxies.

The client only syncs with one account at a time! When it started synchronizing with Librecloud, the other account now says “Waiting for another 1 folder” and no changes are being synced. When I click “Force sync now” for my local server, it pauses the Librecloud server sync.

I can’t believe such a serious limitation exists in modern software. There is no technical reason for something like this as plenty of bandwidth and resources exist. The client should be able to simultaneously sync both accounts.

As it is, Librecloud will take 10+ days to sync and I need my local server to sync continuously during this time. This basically makes it pointless to add another server connection. This feature is useless with this limitation. Is there a hidden setting or something else that I’m missing?

Thanks!

2

Pop over to this issue and give it an upvote. That’s, in part, how things get prioritized.

3

Thank you, but… that thread is from 2019 and it’s still an issue in 2024, so I guess there is no hope this will ever get “prioritized”…

4

Things like this get implemented all the time. Nextcloud is a massive project. It’s just that there are a lot of priorities. I agree it sounds like an important enhancement, but there are probably 10,000 people that think something else is just as important.

Often (for this particular type of enhancement), in addition to other priorities, there are other bits of tech debt being addressed that ultimately enable this type of enhancement to happen.

I’m not saying it is in this case one way or another - my focus is in other areas in the project for the most part so I can’t say with any certainty.

But as an example elsewhere in the project, the Android client has a lot of changes going on it behind the scenes that don’t show up in the user facing aspects of the application, but that shift more and more transactions off of the legacy HTTP library (which doesn’t support HTTP/2). This work is largely invisible to those not looking closely at development (particularly because not all this work is in the client app itself, but in other dependency repositories such as the android-library). Until this is completed, it impedes a lot of queued enhancement work. Then suddenly those enhancements get worked on.

5

Thanks for the explanation but this is major feature that should have been implemented many years ago. Seems like a major oversight to me. I just expected this to work and was completely caught by surprise that something so obvious is missing from the Nextcloud client. We’re not talking some small QoL feature here but a major roadblock for a user.

6

You may be right. I have no way of knowing the % of users that actually use the client with multiple Nextcloud Servers (outside of developers). Judging by the light interest in that issue (based on barely 10 upvotes and minimal comments or issue subscribers) I’d say it’s not zero, but I suspect it’s not the majority either.

7

I’m already frustrated with constant Nextcloud server upgrade problems, every upgrade is a hassle and a headache (lots of threads on this on the web) so I stopped doing updates and I was looking for someone to host it for me. But this may just be the last straw. Perhaps it’s time to look into alternatives or bite the bullet and crawl back to Dropbox…

8

I’m already frustrated with constant Nextcloud server upgrade problems, every upgrade is a hassle and a headache (lots of threads on this on the web)

Out of curiosity:

  • How do you typically upgrade? (e.g. manual, web, command-line, Docker, etc.)
  • What type of environment do you run Nextcloud on? (e.g. bare metal, local VM, cloud VPS, shared hosting environment, etc.)
  • Are you referring to upgrades between major versions or minor/patch updates?
  • Do you typically run the latest bleeding edge major at a given point in time (e.g. v28 at the moment) or do you stick with a more conservative approach of running the still maintained/supported more field tested majors available at a given point in time (e.g. v26/v27 majors at the moment)? (The project puts a lot of time into supporting 2-3 majors with critical bug fixes for a year each, but I get the impression sometimes people don’t realize this and upgrade to the latest majors all time).

No judgement at all either way. I’m trying to understand and looking for opportunities to improve the messaging, docs, update process, etc.

9

Standalone Ubuntu 21 LTS server on dedicated Dell PC. No VMs.
5th Gen i5, 16GB of RAM, SSD
Only stable updates, no bleeding edge stuff.
I’m talking about minor patches, not upgrading to a major new version.
Normal Nextcloud installation on Apache.
Nothing else runs on this machine and I’m the only user.
Most apps disabled.
300Mbps fibre connection.
It’s possibly the most basic instance one can imagine.
I do updates from the web interface, if they fail, then command line.

Every single update in the first year had issues. Anything from updates being stuck to errors on the admin page to the instance being broken. I already had to reinstall once. This has been widely discussed on the web. Lots of people complain about the “Nextcloud upgrade nightmare”.

When it runs, it runs beautifully without a hiccup, but the updates are a complete nightmare. I stopped updating late last year because the instance runs well, all devices sync fine and I don’t want to risk wasting another afternoon googling for fixes.

See this for example, I think you even commented there:

10

Thanks for that note and continuing the constructive dialog.

Re: your experience with the Updater in the linked issue –

With the caveat that this is a mixture of solely my own personal perspective mixed with some educated speculation from spending timely recently reviewing every open issue in the updater app:

I think you’re getting hit by the Iterator bug (probably when this line gets called in the downloader step, but keep in mind this isn’t a solved problem so there’s some speculation here on my part).

While it’s not solved yet, the cause was recently identified (at least in one of the other steps that relies on the Iterator). It still doesn’t seem to impact the majority of environments in a fatal way, but does impact a certain % severely.

Most of the environment’s historically it has typically come up with (as far as I can tell) had underlying explanations/oddities (e.g. installations on nfs mounts/etc), but it’s become apparent that it can happen in conventional environments at times too. And, in either case, it’s a bug.

The Iterator is used in several of the update steps unfortunately. By my own (solely personal) guesstimate it probably accounts for a sizable double digit % of the reported historical bugs / poor experiences with the Updater.

Unfortunately, a recent (and relatively straightforward) fix that was developed by another member of the community (and put into place within one of the code paths in question) had to be rolled back before final release because it used too much memory in environments with lots of files (not an uncommon scenario obviously with Nextcloud).

The Updater is one of those areas of the platform that there’s naturally some conservatism around making material changes to it (since it has traditionally worked for the majority of deployments). Also, it’s almost completely isolated from the rest of the Nextcloud platform (it runs independently, uses different components, and has a different architecture). Lastly, it’s probably not the most exciting area of the project for many developers to spend their limited time / energy within.

For what it’s worth: The Manual Update process, as documented in the admin manual maintenance section, completely bypasses this matter. It’s obviously a less convenient workaround (though less inconvenient than not knowing what’s going to happen), but it’s at least a reliable workaround (unless you’re also hitting other issues of some sort for some reason).

11

The manual update process seems too complicated for my skill level… and patience :slight_smile: I picked Nextcloud because it seemed straightforward and fairly easy for an average enthusiast, like me, to manage. I’m no Linux guru, but I find running Nextcloud fairly easy, except for these updates. It was actually easier and quicker for me to reinstall Nextcloud than trying to fix it when it broke down.

I hope the web updater will get fixed, because it should just work. I only have two issues with Nextcloud: the updating process and this new multiple account synchronizing issue. It would be shame to dump it as it works great otherwise and it’s totally reliable from my experience… as long as I don’t run the update :slight_smile:

Thanks for all your input. I think we can wrap this up for now :slight_smile:

Cheers!