I use OwnCloud to keep an up-to-date copy of my computer documents and to sync a shared documents folder with my family. The files are on a Synology NAS. This means that the family has local copy on a laptop and syncs back to the shared folder on the NAS via OwnCloud.
Before I dig into the details, I would like to know if this is a valid use case for OwnCloud. I ask because even the simple use by one user has become problematic. I wonder if this is something the tool was not designed to do.
Thanks for asking. I hope that I understand the use case correctly
Yes, in general the use case is what we want to enable and support. Syncing files / folders across devices is our key feature and should work very reliable.
Windows “MyDocuments” Folder known issues: When sycing the Documents folder on Windows machines, there are some pitfalls. E.g Microsoft Outlook is using *.pst Files, which are always open and locked by the Application. Due to the nature of how Outlook is handling these files, we cannot sync the outlook archive files reliable. We did some proof of concepts in the past, working with snapshots of the whole user directory, but that never made it into the general product.
Applications and Locks: When you collaborate on a shared folder structure and open the same document locally with a local application like MS Word, you will lock each others write process out and maybe generate .conflict files. This can be avoided by setting up a WebOffice Online Editor where multiple users can work together in a collaborative editing session.
If you have issues, other than described, please post more details.
Thanks for your answer. Here are some more details.
Owncloud is hosted on a Synology NAS. My wife and I each have a MacBook. I am trying to sync a shared folder on the NAS to a folder on each computer.
Each person can make changes on the local copy, but they cannot be synced back to the NAS. I get a file lock error, even after I delete the file locks from the owncloud database.
I believe the this is a permissions problem, but I am not enough of an expert to make experiments.
Ah, now i get it. You have the owncloud server on the NAS and configured the data volume to use the NAS where people are writing to?
One thing is very important: No other user or process should write directly to the owncloud data volume. That will not work, because it will create conflicts.
You can only work with the data in owncloud server by using the owncloud clients.
We are both making changes to our local file system. I thought that this would sync back to the NAS. We are very rarely both working on same file, but I may have issues if it locks the parent directory.
As I understand it, the ownCloud primary storage has been configured to use the NAS (via fstab?) and - based on the screenshot above - an external storage (of type “local”) has been added for ownCloud to be able to use a locally mounted folder from the NAS (again via fstab?).
If this is the case, maybe this is what is causing the locking issues as access to the primary storage is expected to be exclusive. Maybe rather use the SMB connector for mounting the shared folder from the NAS?
Is there somewhere I can see how the NAS mounts the folder ? I know that I user SMB on my Mac. I have activated the SMB on the NAS, but I’m not sure how to check for the Synology NAS for the mounts it does itself.
