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So. I get up this morning to see loads of alerts on my Android 'phone from the #Nextcloud app, advising me of the 100s of files that have been synced to my phone, and of the 100s more that failed to sync. Alongside those alerts were alerts of how my phone is running out of storage and how I've vastly exceeded my bandwidth limits.

Turns out, a new update to the Nextcloud app was installed from F-Droid with a feature I wasn't aware of: Internal two way sync.

Sounds interesting. But it was deployed to my 'phone turned on. I.e. as soon as the installation completed, it seems, nextcloud -- without letting me know -- started to sync 100s of GiB of files to my 'phone.

Seriously, @Nextcloud 📱☁️💻? Seriously not cool.

I now need to clear out my phone storage, and before I do I need to figure out how to do that without deleting the files on my nextcloud server! I also now need to contact my provider to see how much overage money I owe them and to agree a payment plan.

FFS, lads.

Jesus.

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in reply to Éibhear 🔭

That is really f*** unfortunate and should have been caught in testing :-/. Good luck with limiting the damage.
in reply to Éibhear 🔭

this is the “we live in California, where there's no weather, the Internet is always on and free to use, and phones are all flagship” effect
in reply to الجبر خوارزمی

... except nextcloud's a primarily German operation.

But it definitely comes from the Move Fast and Break Things Department.

in reply to Éibhear 🔭

I had the same thing. I first became aware of it as I started getting texts saying I'd used another 10gb of my phone's mobile data... every few minutes.
in reply to Éibhear 🔭

8 hours after I went into my Android Nextcloud app and turned off "Two way sync", it was still trying to synchronise from my server. Many more GiB of data being pulled to my 'phone. I ended up deleting the app.

I think @Nextcloud 📱☁️💻 needs to help me understand how I can recover from this:

  • Where can I find the data on my 'phone that was synchronised to it to clear it out?
  • Is it certain, now that I have deleted the app from my 'phone, that removing the files won't affect the copies on my NC server?
  • Once I have this sorted, and I re-install the app, how can I be sure that the "two way sync" won't start again after I log into the app?


This is an egregious update, and I think we need some good-will support here. Without it, it's going to be very difficult for me to trust any future updates. As I follow the general advice and update my software (client and server!) as soon as there are patches to keep my services secure, it would mean I would have to shutdown my NC server if the company holds to the view that updates that cause such disruption will become the norm.

in reply to Éibhear 🔭

I reckon we've entered an era when large (or reasonably large) tech companies can mess up and push an update to production and go 'Opps', and get away with it.
Ever heard of CrowdStrike getting sued after their SNAFU? There was sabre rattling, but I never heard any further.
in reply to Eoin O'Beara

The CrowdStrike suits have started: reuters.com/legal/crowdstrike-…

I guess when you lose $0.5bn in one day, you're going to take your time to try to build a strong case to reclaim it.

I have been an avid, and increasing user of Nextcloud since just after it forked from Owncloud. Last week, I bought a few more TiB of storage for my own instance, committing to it for my family's and my own file management needs. So, it's a right kick in the teeth now to discover that my faith in their promise to respect *my* data sovereignty might have been misplaced.

in reply to Éibhear 🔭

Thanks! I was wondering why mine had blown up as well.

Éibhear 🔭 reshared this.

in reply to aidan

@aidan_walsh Jeeeeeezus. Tell me that was at least on WiFi not metered mobile data 🙏