Since update to v8.2.1 backups fail with "Too many empty directories"

[jagan]

@girish Hi Girish, I have this 'too many empty directories' issue on one of my Nextcloud instance and I haven't a clue how to deal with it. My last backup was on 6 Jan and I am getting nervous about it. Cloudron means I don't have to worry about backups, and lately, I an getting sleepless about this.

Can you please add an override for this error? Not having backups is IMHO, a more serious issue for me than any empty directories.

Also, running the command shows me directories that clearly are not empty in anyway. I don't know what else to do - I can't delete these directories precisely because they are not empty.

Any other pointers would be very helpful!

[joseph]

@jagan can you check the output of command find /app/data -type d -empty | wc -l in Web Terminal of nextcloud . If that is not a high number, then can you try back up again? The code is simply running that command and concluding the number is too high.

[imc67]

@joseph said in Since update to v8.2.1 backups fail with "Too many empty directories":

@jagan can you check the output of command find /app/data -type d -empty | wc -l in Web Terminal of nextcloud . If that is not a high number, then can you try back up again? The code is simply running that command and concluding the number is too high.

just curious, I don't have a backup issue but executed the command in web terminal NC: 12471 is this high?

and Immich: 26423

[jdaviescoates]

@imc67 said in Since update to v8.2.1 backups fail with "Too many empty directories":

just curious, I don't have a backup issue but executed the command in web terminal NC: 12471 is this high?

You made me curious too!

I seem to have 31267 (but also not currently having any backup issues either)

[jdaviescoates]

@joseph said in Since update to v8.2.1 backups fail with "Too many empty directories":

If that is not a high number,

Define high?

@joseph said in Since update to v8.2.1 backups fail with "Too many empty directories":

The code is simply running that command and concluding the number is too high.

How does the code define it?

[girish]

The number are just some pragmatic values. Empty dirs - 50000 , executables - 20000 and symlinks - 20000 . If it exceeds these, it will error.

[mononym]

@joseph I hit 50968 empty directories Is there a way to solve this as it hinders proper backup processes ? Thanks

P.S.: I think the issue is discussed here: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/46425

Edit: I deleted the content of the preview folder with rm -r app/data/appdata_*/preview/* and then ran sudo -u www-data php -f /app/code/occ files:scan-app-data as suggested in the link above. Ended up with 129 empty directories.

[joseph]

@mononym I recently had to clean up a customer's server . The preview dir had over 230k empty dirs!

# wc -l /tmp/deleted_dirs.txt 
231605 /tmp/deleted_dirs.txt

[jagan]

@joseph Yep, this was my installation

Thank you very much @joseph can't thank you enough.

[robi]

@joseph was there something added to the code to prevent the buildup of empty dirs?

[joseph]

@robi those directories were legit directories under user data and not created by some plugin . I think only @jagan can answer how so many directories can be created. Maybe they are synced from some external source.

[robi]

@joseph oh geez, ok thx ️