I’m using Nextcloud to sync my Documents folder in Windows 11 between various computers. Works pretty well except for this nagging issue. Anytime I take a screenshot/snip with the windows snipping tool it starts spamming windows notification warnings that it can’t sync the file due to “Could not convert to placeholder”.
Initially I thought this was due to the snipping tool program holding the file hence Nextcloud being unable to do anything with it. But even after closing the snipping tool, reloading Nextcloud client, reboot etc. The error will never go away until the file is deleted or renamed. So you just get regular windows alerts from Nextcloud about the error.
What is the deal here? It’s about to make me abandon this as a solution, but feel like there has to be something I’m overlooking here. Why is it trying to make it a placeholder if it’s a local file? This feels semi like a bug but I’m not sure.
Anything else I can provide that might help you help me?
Maybe the name given by snipping tool program is not valid on the Linux File System your NC is installed? Checked that?
I don’t think it’s invalid, doesn’t seem to mind the name, just claims it can’t convert to placeholder. For example the snipping tool naming convention is “Screenshot 2025-10-06 105948.png”.
But you also wrote: The error will never go away until the file is deleted or renamed. So with another name for same file it will work? Yes?
Yea but the name itself isn’t the issue. You can rename it back to the original name even and it’ll sync without error. I assume the rename causes the Nexcloud client to “try again”.
Or the original name contains an invisible invalid character. Check that by creating a new file with the snipping tool program, then not delete or rename it, but move it into another folder that will not be synced by NC client and then move it back into the folter that will be synced. That way the name will not be changed but fpr the Client it will be like have it deleted and created an nwe one with the old name.
Ok, so it does still error when moving the file, but I still don’t see how there can be hidden invalid characters. For grins, I created a temp folder in Nextcloud and manually uploaded the problematic file to it. Assuming the upload feature doesn’t rename the file right? Feel like there is something else going on still.