nextcloud
Auto-upload intermittently misses photos when multiple pictures are taken in quick succession
⚠️ Before posting ⚠️
- [x] This is a bug, not a question or an enhancement.
- [x] I've searched for similar issues and didn't find a duplicate.
- [x] I've written a clear and descriptive title for this issue, not just "Bug" or "Crash".
- [x] I agree to follow Nextcloud's Code of Conduct.
Steps to reproduce
- Take several pictures with your smartphone within a short period of time (e.g. 1 minute)
- Wait for the auto-upload to trigger and to complete the upload
- Find a random (?) subset of photos missing in the remote folder (e.g. only 8/13 pictures were uploaded)
Expected behaviour
Every picture saved to an auto-upload enabled folder on the phone should be uploaded (within a reasonable timeframe)
Actual behaviour
Some photos are not uploaded. There are no failed upload jobs in the queue and retriggering the upload process is not possible/extremly cumbersome.
Android version
14
Device brand and model
Galaxy A54 5G
Stock or custom OS?
Stock
Nextcloud android app version
3.31.1
Nextcloud server version
31.0.2
Using a reverse proxy?
Yes
Android logs
No response
Server error logs
Additional information
I took the liberty to raise this issue separately from the meta-issue concerning the Google revoked file system privileges. I suspect this is to be only losely connected because upload of pictures has started working again in recent versions of the app (playstore version). Adding the option to manually trigger a rescan of the upload folder would be helpful as well.
I've noticed this same issue as well, I'm using the F-Droid version of the app, version 3.31.1
Nextcloud server version 31.0.0
Android app 3.31.1 Nextcloud 30.0.0
I believe I am seeing the same behaviour.
Not all images I take are being uploaded and it does seem to be time related.
Trying to force the app to retrigger the upload check also does not seem to get files uploaded.
I have the same problem, and not only with multiple pictures. Just one photo doesn't upload.
Rebooting Android it usually works to trigger the auto-upload.
Had this issue for several months now. Resetting the app, logging in and setting everything up again makes it work for a while. But it breaks again at some point. The "All Files" permission is still there and I can't figure out why this happens. Pretty annoying.
I used to move the photos I wanted to sync to a folder, but it broke a few months ago. When I reinstall the app, it syncs properly, but if I move new photos or videos into the folder, it's impossible to sync. I have to reinstall the app to trigger the sync.
Another person with the same problem here.
Some photos simply don't appear in the 'uploads' list - no errors, no pending, no upload - they just don't appear in the list at all. Rebooting the phone doesn't help. Restarting the Nextcloud server doesn't help.
I've never thought about timing before, but looking at the gallery and what's sync'd, it definitely seems to be where several photos were taken reasonably closely together in time.
More annoying than the problem existing in the first place is that there doesn't seem to be any way of saying "Look, you've missed some, please re-scan and then upload the missing photos".
Android version 15
Device brand and model Pixel 7a
Stock or custom OS? GrapheneOS
Nextcloud android app version 3.31.2
Nextcloud server version 31.0.5
Using a reverse proxy? No
Agreed something that forces a rescan of monitored folders would be really useful. I find going into auto upload, unchecking anf rechecking the camera folder is not enough to trigger the upload.
For me changing back from skip upload to always ask on conflicting copies solved the problem. (Not certain of the exact wording, my app is in Swedish) Changed from the default always ask a couple of years ago due to a lot of bogus conflicting copies notifications.
In my case this doesn't apply since I have always kept the default setting (always ask).
I wanted to chime in that Im seeing this same issue. I usually take 3-4 pictures in quick succession to capture hopefully one good one from my kids. Nextcloud is only uploading a single image of the group.
This is by actually taking multiple pictures, not using the burst function. As long as they're taken within the same minute, only 1 of the pictures are uploaded.
I've changed upload conflict settings, uninstalled and reinstalled. Issue still persists.
I also want to confirm that I encountered the same issue and found that some photos of mine didn't upload in the camera upload. When I checked, these photos were taken almost within the same minute, but out of three photos, only one uploaded to the server, and the other two were skipped. I have the latest app version 3.31.4 at the moment and also the latest version of Nextcloud All-in-One (I don't have the exact version on hand right now because I'm not at the computer).
I also confirm that this bug exists and I would really like to have an option to rescan and re-upload the missing photos.
The bug is very frustrating because, for example, in my case, I was photographing several sheets of documents, and of course, they are done very quickly, and I lost photos of several sheets. As a result, anyone who is re-photographing multiple sheets will inevitably encounter this bug and lose valuable information.
Same issue.
+1 for a force rescan and upload missing feature - that would be so helpful and seems like a no brainer!
I used to move the photos I wanted to sync to a folder, but it broke a few months ago. When I reinstall the app, it syncs properly, but if I move new photos or videos into the folder, it's impossible to sync. I have to reinstall the app to trigger the sync.
@ereynier I think your/our problem is a different one, see my comments: #14945
Hi all, a work around proposed in a linked thread has worked well for me: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/15050#issuecomment-3068773409
The TLDR is turn off auto upload and instead use an applicaton called foldersync
I tried using the FolderSync app as recommended here, but I didn't like it, even though it initially seemed like a decent alternative. To sync photos the way Nextcloud does, you need to set up tasks and triggers very carefully. However, it still won't be a complete replacement. For example, in Nextcloud, you can specify that videos should sync over Wi-Fi and images over any type of connection, whereas in FolderSync, you have to create multiple tasks with specific filters for each. Another downside of FolderSync is that when you delete photos on your phone, they are marked as hidden files, and FolderSync sees them as files that need to be synced. So, deleted photos on the phone get re-uploaded to the server, along with buried files.
Dear Nextcloud developers, please fix this bug as soon as possible. It's very unpleasant and damages your reputation because of this bug, almost all users who use Nextcloud as a program to sync their phone camera photos lose a huge number of files during sync, mistakenly believing that the photos and videos have been uploaded to the server, but in reality, they haven't and might be mistakenly deleted from the phone.
As many here also suggest, you can disable the sync, then re-enable it, and it will restart synchronization, but that's not a solution. In some special cases, file duplicates may occur because some photos might have been synced with settings to just put them in a folder, while in other cases, settings indicate putting them in sub-folders by date. In such cases, duplicates arise.
Hello everyone. After correlating with which version this bug roughly appeared, either in this branch or in adjacent ones referred to by another branch here, versions 3.31.1 or 3.31.3 were mentioned. I looked at the commits, and the closest commit that could somehow be related to the upload is the following. Maybe someone from the developers can look and see if it might be connected to this bug.
https://github.com/nextcloud/android/pull/14905
I tried using the FolderSync app as recommended here, but I didn't like it, even though it initially seemed like a decent alternative. To sync photos the way Nextcloud does, you need to set up tasks and triggers very carefully. However, it still won't be a complete replacement. For example, in Nextcloud, you can specify that videos should sync over Wi-Fi and images over any type of connection, whereas in FolderSync, you have to create multiple tasks with specific filters for each. Another downside of FolderSync is that when you delete photos on your phone, they are marked as hidden files, and FolderSync sees them as files that need to be synced. So, deleted photos on the phone get re-uploaded to the server, along with buried files.
Dear Nextcloud developers, please fix this bug as soon as possible. It's very unpleasant and damages your reputation because of this bug, almost all users who use Nextcloud as a program to sync their phone camera photos lose a huge number of files during sync, mistakenly believing that the photos and videos have been uploaded to the server, but in reality, they haven't and might be mistakenly deleted from the phone.
As many here also suggest, you can disable the sync, then re-enable it, and it will restart synchronization, but that's not a solution. In some special cases, file duplicates may occur because some photos might have been synced with settings to just put them in a folder, while in other cases, settings indicate putting them in sub-folders by date. In such cases, duplicates arise.
While all of this is true, I see this as a real feature (it is actually one of the selling points): You can set up FolderSync exactly as you like - super broad or very fine grained:
- Sync videos only via WiFi? No problem - or even better, decide based on file size instead of extension.
- Don't sync deleted files, sure!
- Sync only in specific wifis! Privacy first, you got it!
- Etc. pp.
- Or just sync everything every time
Yes, you have to set up your folders and their way of syncing, but then you have a working solution, with exactly your desired settings and the best: it just works and does not get broken every other version ;)
I have this probem too. Periodic rescan(or triggered rescan) of folder with photos should be added as feature. Service is not reliable at all for uploading.
Isn't periodic rescan overcomplicating it? When new photos are detected they should all be uploaded, not just one per distinct minute.
Isn't periodic rescan overcomplicating it? When new photos are detected they should all be uploaded, not just one per distinct minute.
Of course. I understand that ideally everything should work that way, but in reality it turns out that when you take several shots in rapid succession, some images get uploaded while others do not, and apparently they are marked as uploaded in the database because no further uploads occur on the server afterward. Moreover, they don't even appear in the data transfer queue.
Isn't periodic rescan overcomplicating it? When new photos are detected they should all be uploaded, not just one per distinct minute.
Thats the best route. We just need devs that will implement this. This should be priority because otherwise we are left like (maybe all items uploaded, maybe not) and truth is everybody dont have time to double check uploads.
I would like to emphasize to the developers of the Nextcloud app on Android that this bug is specifically related to the mobile application itself. This is because I have noticed that photos that are not uploaded to the server also do not appear in the transfer status list available in the app’s settings. That is, it appears as if the app isn’t even adding new files from the camera folders, for instance, for uploading. And after it uploads a batch to the server, these unuploaded photos continue to go unnoticed by the app.
Moreover, if you also install the Memories app on your phone and configure its auto-upload folder to display a feed, and specifically enable the toggle in Memories to show files from the user’s local directory on the phone, the unuploaded files are visible in the Memories feed with a crossed-out cloud icon. I would like to stress that the Nextcloud server successfully informs the Memories app about the contents of directories, and Memories recognizes the unuploaded files. Therefore, I believe there is no technical issue for the developers in automatically determining via the API which photos have been uploaded and which have not, in order to trigger auto-upload.
However, even if an auto-upload trigger is not implemented for photos that have failed to upload for whatever reason due to app glitches, the most important thing is to fix this bug that causes nearly every Nextcloud user to lose some photos, expecting that they have been uploaded to the auto-upload folder.
Okay I can confirm that this issue exists - Its so annoying for me I contemplating hacking together a camera app that just uploads to nextcloud right away.
Anybody interested in the code for the android app I made working around the issue for my personal use-case at least? Its basically a very poor camera app that writes its file into a hard-coded but nextcloud referenced directory - this causes an direct upload. If there is any interest i will throw it into git and anybody interested can compile their own version.
Have you tried the QA version from https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/14945#issuecomment-3397678238 ?
