nextcloud-desktop/doc/troubleshooting.rst
2013-04-30 13:53:33 +02:00

3.8 KiB

Troubleshooting

If the client fails to start syncing it basically can have two basic reasons: Either the server setup has a problem or the client has a bug. When reporting bugs, it is crucial to find out what part of the system causes the problem.

Here are a couple of useful steps to isolate the problem.

A general ownCloud Server test

A very first check is to verify that you can log on to ownClouds web application. Assuming your ownCloud instance is installed at http://yourserver.com/owncloud, type http://yourserver.com/owncloud/ into your browsers address bar.

If you are not prompted to enter your user name and password, or if you see a red warning box on the page, your server setup is not correct or needs fixes. Please verify that your server installation is working correctly.

All desktop clients fail to connect to ownCloud

The ownCloud syncing use the built in WebDAV server of ownCloud. Verify that you can log on to ownClouds WebDAV server. Assuming your ownCloud instance is installed at http://yourserver.com/owncloud, type http://yourserver.com/owncloud/remote.php/webdav into your browsers address bar.

If you are prompted, but the authentication fails even though the credentials your provided are correct, please ensure that your authentication backend is configured properly.

Use a WebDAV command line tool to test

A more sophisticated test is to use a WebDAV command line client and log into the ownCloud WebDAV server, such as a little app called cadaver, available on Linux. It can be used to further verify that the WebDAV server is running properly, for example by performing PROPFIND calls:

propget . called within cadaver will return some properties of the current directory and thus be a successful WebDAV connect.

Logfiles

Doing effective debugging requires to provide as much as relevant logfiles as possible. The log output can help you with tracking down problem, and if you report a bug, you're advised to include the output.

Client Logfile

Start the client with --logwindow. That opens a window providing a view on the current log. It provides a Save button to let you save the log to a file.

You can also open a log window for an already running session, by simply starting the client again with this parameter. Syntax:

  • Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\ownCloud\owncloud.exe --logwindow
  • Mac OS X: /Applications/owncloud.app/Contents/MacOS/owncloud --logwindow
  • Linux: owncloud --logwindow

It is also possible to directly log into a file, which is an useful option in case the problem only happens ocassionally. In that case it is better to create a huge logfile than piping the whole log through the log window.

To create a log file, start the client with --logfile <filename>.

ownCloud server Logfile

The ownCloud server maintains an ownCloud specific logfile as well. It can and must be enabled through the ownCloud Administration page. There you can adjust the loglevel. It is advisable to set it to a verbose level like Debug or Info.

The logfile can be viewed either in the web interface or can be found in the filesystem in the ownCloud server data dir.

Webserver Logfiles

Also, please take a look at your webservers error log file to check if there are problems. For apache on linux, the error logs usually can be found at /var/log/apache2. A file called error_log shows errors like PHP code problems. A file called access_log usually records all requests handled by the server. Especially the access_log is a very good debugging tool as the log line contains a lot of information of every request and it's result.

More information about the apache logging can be found at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/logs.html.