webdav on surfer

[girish]

Interesting. AFAIK, there is no difference between tokens and username/password (for the webdav client).

[robi]

what about what happens after, session caching, cookies, etc

[girish]

WebDAV doesn't have session/cookies etc

[nebulon]

most likely this is a client issue, where for some reason your webdav client does not cache the password (now password is that access token)

[jdaviescoates]

@nebulon but it does cache it for Nextcloud username/ passwords and used to cache it for Surfer too before you changed it to acess token/ pw only.

The only thing that has changed in my set up is Surfer itself.

[girish]

@jdaviescoates yeah, that is what is strange. for the client, the access token is no different from a password. there's no difference.

[bmann]

Working for me on fresh installs!

[jdaviescoates]

@girish said in webdav on surfer:

@jdaviescoates yeah, that is what is strange. for the client, the access token is no different from a password. there's no difference.

I worked it out!

When clicking Connect in Nautilus, it wasn't prompt/ asking if I wanted to save my password at all, I was just presented with this:

And the only thing possible to do when that screen is displayed it to either enter a password or cancel, it's not even possible to view another app or anything.

But it seems it should as per e.g. this image from this guide https://www.knthost.com/nextcloud/setup-gnome-nautilus-access-nextcloud-files-webdav

And because I must've chosen "Remember forever" when setting up Nextcloud mount (either that or just adding Nextcloud Accounts via Ubuntu Online Account settings does that anyway), when I tried testing it with an instance of Nextcloud instead of Surfer it doesn't even ask for a password at all. So I figured it must've remember the password somewhere...

So I searched for Passwords and found this Passwords and Keys app that I've never seen/ used before

And I saw there was a pw stored for library.uniteddiversity.coop

But of course that was the old password before Surfer updated to just use access tokens. So I edited the pw to be the new access token, and now it all works again! Phew.

And just to test, I decided to try and connect to a Surfer app that I've never tried to mount locally before, and lo and behold this time it did show this:

Although I note that Nautilus required me to add a Username before being able to hit the Connect button (the button remained greyed out until both a Username and Password were entered into the fields).

Anyways, all working again now (and now I now where to find/ how to change the "Remembered forever" passwords too, so bonus!)

[robi]

From all the Surfer changes, does this work for folks?

I was able to connect and mount webdav to a new surfer instance via user/app password, but I can't write to it.

It mounts as empty when it should show what we see in /app/data or /app/data/public?

Then it seems Surfer app crashes and restarts.

Logs:

Oct 09 10:02:04 ==> Starting Surfer
Oct 09 10:02:05 2026-10-09T15:02:05Z 
Oct 09 10:02:05 Alias domains: angelfalls.toldyouso.com
Oct 09 10:02:05 Base path: /app/data/public
Oct 09 10:02:05 Listening on http://localhost:3000
Oct 09 10:02:05 Loading rich mime-types from /usr/share/mime/globs2
Oct 09 10:02:05 Using database at: /app/data/db.sqlite
Oct 09 10:03:49 2026-10-09T15:03:49Z 
Oct 09 10:03:49 2026-10-09T15:03:49Z 
Oct 09 10:03:49 /app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/webDAVServer/WebDAVServer.js:237
Oct 09 10:03:49 Node.js v24.21.0
Oct 09 10:03:49 PROPFIND /_webdav/._. 404
Oct 09 10:03:49 PROPFIND /_webdav/._untitled%20folder 404
Oct 09 10:03:49 PROPFIND /_webdav/._untitled%20folder 404
Oct 09 10:03:49 PROPFIND /_webdav/untitled%20folder 404
Oct 09 10:03:49 TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'paths')
Oct 09 10:03:49 ^
Oct 09 10:03:49 at /app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/helper/v2/IfParser.js:132:28
Oct 09 10:03:49 at /app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/commands/Put.js:12:17
Oct 09 10:03:49 at /app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/webDAVServer/WebDAVServer.js:90:13
Oct 09 10:03:49 at HTTPRequestContext.checkIfHeader (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/RequestContext.js:226:43)
Oct 09 10:03:49 at HTTPRequestContext.getResource (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/RequestContext.js:100:21)
Oct 09 10:03:49 at WebDAVServer.getFileSystem (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/webDAVServer/WebDAVServer.js:221:29)
Oct 09 10:03:49 at WebDAVServer.getFileSystem (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/webDAVServer/WebDAVServer.js:222:9)
Oct 09 10:03:49 at WebDAVServer.getFileSystemSync (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/webDAVServer/WebDAVServer.js:237:22)
Oct 09 10:03:49 at WebDAVServer.getResource (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/webDAVServer/WebDAVServer.js:89:14)
Oct 09 10:03:49 at default_1.chunked (/app/code/node_modules/webdav-server/lib/server/v2/commands/Put.js:11:13)
Oct 09 10:03:49 if (path.paths.length < pfsPath.paths.length)
Oct 09 10:03:52 ==> Ensure permissions
Oct 09 10:03:52 ==> Starting Surfer
Oct 09 10:03:53 2026-10-09T15:03:53Z 
Oct 09 10:03:53 Alias domains: angelfalls.toldyouso.com
Oct 09 10:03:53 Base path: /app/data/public
Oct 09 10:03:53 Listening on http://localhost:3000
Oct 09 10:03:53 Loading rich mime-types from /usr/share/mime/globs2
Oct 09 10:03:53 Using database at: /app/data/db.sqlite

[jdaviescoates]

@robi my existing webdav connection to https://library.uniteddiversity.coop had broken. But works again (including writing) after creating and using a new App password for it (GNOME Files didn't actually prompt for a username, just a password)

[robi]

@jdaviescoates Thanks, could be MacOS specific, I'll try a remount and see what happens.

UPDATE: it still makes it crash, the files display in the mount for a second then disappear as it bombs.

[girish]

This works on GNOME too. I happen to have a Mac, let me check...

[girish]

Upstream bug - https://github.com/OpenMarshal/npm-WebDAV-Server/issues/146