Windows Desktop Client: Uploads 100 files at a time and freezes

📱 Desktop & mobile clients 💻 Desktop
1

Nextcloud version: 25.0.10
Operating system and version: Gentoo
Apache version: Apache/2.4.54
PHP version: 8.1

The issue you are facing:

So we have a fleet of old nextcloud clients and 1 computer with the latest version (3.12.0). Reason we’ve held back the rest of our computers is because of the nasty bug a few years ago that removed timestamps for files, so we’ve been cautious upgrading…

So the new client is way faster at uploaded. Using 3MB files we are hitting 135mbps upload speed, which is going through a low-end mikrotik router which is doing a lot of packet mangling, so we anticipate that headline speed is actually a result of the CPU hitting 100% on the router, not the limitation of the servers/client/nextcloud.

However, what we are seeing with this latest version of the client is that it uploads 100 files in a few seconds, then just hangs not uploading anything for about a minute, then quickly uploads another 100 files, hangs, and this continues in a loop in this fashion. During the hang of the client, there are no spikes on the servers (MySQL, Application Servers or Storage Servers).

What makes this more strange is that the older clients don’t do this, they consistently upload with no breaks, but at a lower speed (About 35 - 40mbps). Because of the huge gaps on the new client, despite the headline speed being substantially faster, it is actually way slower because of these pauses.

We have redis configured as a file-locking memcache.

If we set both the new client and the old clients uploading at the same time, when the new client freezes, the old clients continue to upload with no drop in speed.

Apache is configured with mod_php. Max upload/post size is 2GB, max file uploads I set to 1000 (because it was set to 100, which I thought might have been the reason it hung every 100 files, but that change and restart of apache didn’t fix it).

Is anyone else having this issue? I kind of feel like it’s a client issue, considering the older client doesn’t seem to have the same issue… but I’m also wondering if something is mis-configured on the server side that the new client doesn’t like.

Haven’t pasted any log files as no errors happen during the freezing.

2

Some further info:

This is using “virtual files”. I’ve not tested it yet with normal file sync but I will try when I get a chance.

Also, I’ve just clicked “Make files available locally” on a large folder to test downloading, as opposed to uploading, and the issue isn’t there on downloads. It consistently downloads without any pausing, so the issue only affects uploads.

3

Any limit set under the Download Bandwidth setting in the impacted client installations?

Haven’t pasted any log files as no errors happen during the freezing.

What are the last couple lines in the client debug log before each freeze period?

I believe the bulk uploader - which is for optimizing the transfer of small files - has a batch size of 100. Is this solely happening with groups of small files by chance?

4

It appears to be a compatibility issue with the latest Nextcloud client. To troubleshoot:

  1. Check client logs for error messages.
  2. Ensure the server runs the latest compatible version.
  3. Explore forums for similar issues and solutions.
  4. Reach out to Nextcloud support or community for assistance, specifying your client and server versions.
5

Right, when I originally uploaded files and this was happening, they are all around 2.5mb - 3mb. I’m not sure what the client justifies as “small files” which need batching, but from what you’ve said and the speed that the client hits when uploading, I’m going to assume it was batching them together.

I just tried the same thing with 30mb files and there is no freezing/pausing at all.

I will upload the 3mb files again shortly and see if anything is logged to the server/client log files during the upload and get back.

And no, no bandwidth limits set in the client