Auto-unwanted file deletion after copy

[nihl4]

Describe the bug

On desktop client, after downloading a file or moving one to an OpenCloud folder in "Personal", the file is automatically deleted a few second/minutes later.
This doesn't happen all the time but happen quite frequently, so I had trouble to reproduce it consistently.
If I then try to add the file again, it gives an "Error transferring [https://opencloud.example.com/dav/spaces/id] - server replied: " in activity when trying to sync it but doesn't get deleted (no explicit error message)
If I then try to upload the file through the web UI to the same location, I also have an "Unkown error".

An information that might be relevant too, I remember in the past having a similar bug, where I tried to upload with a different filename the same file in the UI, and then when trying to rename it to the correct previous filename, it said "filename already exist" event tho it was the only file in the folder (not a hidden file starting with dot).

I have this issue since January, I have been able to solve the issue for some time by doing a clean install, but it came back at some point.

Steps to reproduce

1. Download or move a file to the OpenCloud desktop folder

Expected behavior

The file is copied to the OpenCloud folder and is not deleted

Actual behavior

The file is copied to the OpenCloud folder, then is deleted without actions on my end a few seconds/minutes later.

Setup

The server is started using docker compose. Here is the content of the file (note: I had the issue initially without OICD et SMTP setup)

services:
  opencloud:
    # renovate: depName=opencloudeu/opencloud-rolling
    image: ${OC_DOCKER_IMAGE:-opencloudeu/opencloud-rolling}:${OC_DOCKER_TAG:-5.2.0}
    # changelog: https://github.com/opencloud-eu/opencloud/tree/main/changelog
    # release notes: https://docs.opencloud.eu/opencloud_release_notes.html
    container_name: opencloud
    user: xxxx:xxx
    entrypoint:
      - /bin/sh
    command:
      - -c
      - opencloud init || true; opencloud server
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/Paris
      # enable services that are not started automatically
      OC_ADD_RUN_SERVICES: ${START_ADDITIONAL_SERVICES}
      OC_URL: https://opencloud.example.com
      OC_LOG_LEVEL: ${LOG_LEVEL:-info}
      OC_LOG_COLOR: ${LOG_PRETTY:-false}
      OC_LOG_PRETTY: ${LOG_PRETTY:-false}
      # do not use SSL between the reverse proxy and OpenCloud
      PROXY_TLS: "false"
      # INSECURE: needed if OpenCloud / reverse proxy is using self generated certificates
      OC_INSECURE: true
      # basic auth (not recommended, but needed for eg. WebDav clients that do not support OpenID Connect)
      PROXY_ENABLE_BASIC_AUTH: true
      #PROXY_ENABLE_BASIC_AUTH: ${PROXY_ENABLE_BASIC_AUTH:-false}
      # demo users
      IDM_CREATE_DEMO_USERS: ${DEMO_USERS:-false}
      # admin password
      #IDM_ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD}
      # email server (if configured)
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_HOST: ${SMTP_HOST}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_PORT: ${SMTP_PORT}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_SENDER: ${SMTP_SENDER:-OpenCloud Notifications
        <notifications@cloud.opencloud.test>}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_USERNAME: ${SMTP_USERNAME}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_PASSWORD: ${SMTP_PASSWORD}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_INSECURE: ${SMTP_INSECURE:-false}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_AUTHENTICATION: ${SMTP_AUTHENTICATION}
      NOTIFICATIONS_SMTP_ENCRYPTION: ${SMTP_TRANSPORT_ENCRYPTION:-none}
      FRONTEND_ARCHIVER_MAX_SIZE: "10000000000"
      FRONTEND_CHECK_FOR_UPDATES: ${CHECK_FOR_UPDATES:-true}
      # enable to allow using the banned passwords list
      #OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_BANNED_PASSWORDS_LIST: banned-password-list.txt
      # control the password enforcement and policy for public shares
      OC_SHARING_PUBLIC_SHARE_MUST_HAVE_PASSWORD: ${OC_SHARING_PUBLIC_SHARE_MUST_HAVE_PASSWORD:-true}
      OC_SHARING_PUBLIC_WRITEABLE_SHARE_MUST_HAVE_PASSWORD: ${OC_SHARING_PUBLIC_WRITEABLE_SHARE_MUST_HAVE_PASSWORD:-false}
      OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_DISABLED: ${OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_DISABLED:-false}
      OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_CHARACTERS: ${OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_CHARACTERS:-8}
      OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_LOWERCASE_CHARACTERS: ${OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_LOWERCASE_CHARACTERS:-1}
      OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_UPPERCASE_CHARACTERS: ${OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_UPPERCASE_CHARACTERS:-1}
      OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_DIGITS: ${OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_DIGITS:-1}
      OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_SPECIAL_CHARACTERS: ${OC_PASSWORD_POLICY_MIN_SPECIAL_CHARACTERS:-1}
      # default language for services/WebUI; defaults to English, language code (ISO 639-1, e.g. de, en, fr)
      OC_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE: ${DEFAULT_LANGUAGE}
      IDP_DOMAIN: ${IDP_DOMAIN}
      OC_OIDC_ISSUER: ${OC_OIDC_ISSUER}
      WEB_OIDC_CLIENT_ID: ${WEB_OIDC_CLIENT_ID}
      OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET: ${OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET}
      WEB_OIDC_SCOPE: openid profile email groups offline_access # Offline access prevents logouts as soon as the access token expires.
      OIDC_REDIRECT_URI: https://${OC_DOMAIN:-cloud.opencloud.test}
      OC_EXCLUDE_RUN_SERVICES: idp
      PROXY_OIDC_REWRITE_WELLKNOWN: "true"
      PROXY_AUTOPROVISION_ACCOUNTS: "true"
      PROXY_OIDC_ACCESS_TOKEN_VERIFY_METHOD: none
      PROXY_OIDC_SKIP_VERIFICATION: "false"
      PROXY_USER_OIDC_CLAIM: preferred_username
      PROXY_AUTOPROVISION_CLAIM_USERNAME: preferred_username
      PROXY_ROLE_ASSIGNMENT_DRIVER: oidc
      PROXY_ROLE_ASSIGNMENT_OIDC_CLAIM: groups
      GRAPH_ASSIGN_DEFAULT_USER_ROLE: "false"
      GRAPH_USERNAME_MATCH: none
      PROXY_CSP_CONFIG_FILE_LOCATION: /etc/opencloud/csp.yaml
      WEBFINGER_OIDC_ISSUER_DESKTOP: ${WEBFINGER_OIDC_ISSUER_DESKTOP}

    volumes:
      - ./config:/etc/opencloud
      - /path/to/OpenCloud/data:/var/lib/opencloud
      - ./config/proxy.yaml:/etc/opencloud/proxy.yaml
      - ./config/csp.yaml:/etc/opencloud/csp.yaml
      - ./apps:/var/lib/opencloud/web/assets/apps
    ports:
      - 9201:9200
    logging:
      driver: local
    restart: unless-stopped

Details

PROXY_ENABLE_BASIC_AUTH=true
OC_SHARING_PUBLIC_WRITEABLE_SHARE_MUST_HAVE_PASSWORD=true
INSECURE=true

OC_DOCKER_IMAGE=opencloudeu/opencloud-rolling
OC_DOCKER_TAG=latest

DEMO_USERS=false

Additional context

The server is served through reverse proxy, initially it was by Synology integrated one and now by Caddy.

[micbar]

This behavior is definately wrong. Unfortunately i cannot reproduce it.

We need desktop client logs from the time frame when the issue happens.

[nihl4]

Hi @micbar , thanks for your answer.

I am trying to reproduce it, I'll make sure to include logs from the client the next time the issue happens.

[nihl4]

The issue just happened.

Description of what I did/happened:

1. I uploaded a photo to the OpenCloud Android App from my phone (20260424_172737.jpg)
2. The photo get synced to the Windows OpenCloud desktop client folder
3. A few minutes later, I copy pasted a file from windows to the same folder as where the image synced before (LM_Inovarion.pdf)
4. It triggered a new sync to the server, and this sync deleted the file (20260424_172737.jpg)

Here are the logs from the desktop client in this time frame:

OpenCloud.log

Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

[dragotin]

These log lines:

26-05-08 18:39:56:006 [ info sync.discovery ]:	Processing (db|local|remote) "Documents/Test/20260424_172737.jpg" | valid: true/true/false | mtime: 1778257472/1778257472/0 | size: 4095413/4095413/0 | etag: "e6dac3965668d1ba8093793f3a636984"//"" | checksum: "SHA1:c6e691020c20c461fffee463fb7391906a58c244"//"" | perm: "WDNVR"//"" | fileid: "5f4e1872-4c41-4531-bb8d-6109384e9338$26a53370-8204-4009-9916-3c44392d91ff!c730df67-b883-42c2-a4e7-d3e6dc08ed72"//"" | inode: 17451448556122914/17451448556122914/ | type: CSyncEnums::ItemTypeFile/CSyncEnums::ItemTypeFile/CSyncEnums::ItemTypeFile
26-05-08 18:39:56:006 [ info sync.discovery ]:	Discovered "Documents/Test/20260424_172737.jpg" CSyncEnums::CSYNC_INSTRUCTION_REMOVE OCC::SyncFileItem::Down CSyncEnums::ItemTypeFile

indicate that the file disappeared on the server. The server PROPFIND does not have an entry for file 20260424_172737.jpg while it is fine locally. That is - as it is correctly indicated here by CSYNC_INSTRUCTION_REMOVE in the log - the reason to remove the file locally.

The question that we have to clearify is why the server does not report an entry for the file.
Potential reasons:
a) Wrong PROPFIND result
b) File was removed on the server meanwhile, eg. by the android app?
c) ...

[nihl4]

I don't know if that matter or not, maybe this can help narrow the issue, but the files deleted by this behavior do not appear in "Deleted files" in the web client. While the files I manually delete myself correctly appear in it.

[markrosan8]

I have seen so many reported issues surrounding the desktop client causing data corruption and data loss. I had similar issues too, it randomly duplicated some folders and removed others, so I stopped using it completely. It is unstable. Very unfortunate.

[micbar]

@markrosan8
I know the codebase of this client since 2017.
The occurrances, where this happened were very rare and mostly underlying OS bugs.

In this case, the log states very clearly that the server has deleted the file.

Like 99% of the time, people are blaming the client but it’s almost always the server.

In this case it might be an encoding issue between Android and the server. Just guessing.

[markrosan8]

I understand. I had bad experience with the desktop client, but maybe I am using that as a heuristic to call the client itself unstable.

Issue is it doesn't really matter where or why the bug happens to the user. For example some time ago, i had files and folders disappearing from web, on stable! Updating to rolling fixed it. It was not actually data loss, but it looked like it! And now, I have some weird issues with folders with parenthesis and such.

I don't really know the QA process you guys use, but is there testing for this stuff? How can it be made more reliable? Right now I use opencloud for myself and a few technical friends, but I'm really hesitant to expand it to people like family, etc who will be affected by these types of issues.

I know there are a lot of features and stuff in the works, but I feel reliability is very important.