Troubleshooting
Calendar
Contacts
Unable to update contacts or events
If you get an error like:
PATCH https://example.com/remote.php/dav HTTP/1.0 501 Not Implemented
it is likely because of a misconfigured web server. Please refer to Troubleshooting WebDAV for troubleshooting steps.
Mail
Autoconfig for your mail domain fails
If autoconfiguration for your domain fails, you can create an autoconfig file and place it as https://autoconfig.yourdomain.tld/mail/config-v1.1.xml. For more information please refer to Mozilla’s documentation.
Database insert problems on MySQL
If the mail app fails to insert new rows for messages (oc_mail_messages), recipients (oc_mail_recipients) or similar tables, you are possibly not using the 4 byte support.
See Enabling MySQL 4-byte support for how to update your database configuration.
Export threading data
If you encounter an issue with threading, e.g. messages that belong to the same conversation thread don’t show up as one, you can export the data the algorithm will use to build threads. We are dealing with sensitive data here, but the command will optionally redact the data with the --redact switch. The exported data will then only keep the original database IDs, the rest of the data is randomized. This format does not the export message details, it still contains metadata about how many messages you have and how they relate. Please consider this before posting the data online.
sudo -E -u www-data php occ mail:account:export-threads 1393
Note
1393 represents the account ID.
The output will look similar to this:
[
{
"subject": "83379f9bc36915d5024de878386060b5@redacted",
"id": "2def0f3597806ecb886da1d9cc323a7c@redacted",
"references": [],
"databaseId": 261535
},
{
"subject": "Re: 1d4725ae1ac4e4798b541ca3f3cdce6e@redacted",
"id": "ce9e248333c44a5a64ccad26f2550f95@redacted",
"references": [
"bc95cbaff3abbed716e1d40bbdaa58a0@redacted",
"8651a9ac37674907606c936ced1333d7@redacted",
"4a87e94522a3cf26dba8977ae901094d@redacted",
"a3b30430b1ccb41089170eecbe315d3a@redacted",
"8e9f60369dce3d8b2b27430bd50ec46d@redacted",
"46cfa6e729ff329e6ede076853154113@redacted",
"079e7bc89d69792839a5e1831b1cbc80@redacted",
"079e7bc89d69792839a5e1831b1cbc80@redacted"
],
"databaseId": 262086
},
{
"subject": "Re: 1d4725ae1ac4e4798b541ca3f3cdce6e@redacted",
"id": "8dd0e0ef2f7ab100b75922489ff26306@redacted",
"references": [
"bc95cbaff3abbed716e1d40bbdaa58a0@redacted",
"8651a9ac37674907606c936ced1333d7@redacted",
"4a87e94522a3cf26dba8977ae901094d@redacted",
"a3b30430b1ccb41089170eecbe315d3a@redacted",
"8e9f60369dce3d8b2b27430bd50ec46d@redacted",
"46cfa6e729ff329e6ede076853154113@redacted",
"079e7bc89d69792839a5e1831b1cbc80@redacted",
"ce9e248333c44a5a64ccad26f2550f95@redacted",
"ce9e248333c44a5a64ccad26f2550f95@redacted"
],
"databaseId": 262087
}
]
It’s recommended practice to pipe the export into a file, which you can later share with the Mail app community and developers:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ mail:account:export-threads 1393 | gzip -c > /tmp/nextcloud-mail-threads-1393.json.gz
Get account IDs
For many troubleshooting instructions you need to know the id of a mail account. You can acquire this through the database, but it’s also possible to utilize the account export command of occ if you know the UID of the user utilizing the mail account:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ mail:account:export user123
The output will look similar to this:
Account 1393:
- E-Mail: christoph@domain.com
- Name: Christoph Wurst
- IMAP user: christoph
- IMAP host: mx.domain.com:993, security: ssl
- SMTP user: christoph
- SMTP host: mx.domain.com:587, security: tls
In this example, 1393 is the account ID.
Issues connecting to Outlook.com
If you can not access your Outlook.com account try to enable the Two-Factor Verification and set up an app password, which you then use for the Nextcloud Mail app.
Logging the IMAP/SMTP/Sieve connections
The Nextcloud Mail app offers an extensive logging system to make it easier identifying and tracking down bugs. As this may include sensitive data, be sure to remove or mask them before posting them publicly.
Per mail account
Added in version 5.1.0.
Starting with version 5.1.0 of the mail app, you can enable logging of outgoing IMAP/SMTP/Sieve connections limited to a specific mail account. As that saves a lot of resources on your system, this is the preferred method for debugging issues regarding IMAP/SMTP/Sieve connections.
First, you need to get the accountId for the mail account you like to enable debug logging on. Please see Get account IDs for more.
Once you know the accountId of the mail account in question, you can use it to enable debug logging by running the following command on the server:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ mail:account:debug <accountId> --on
All subsequent outgoing connections made by the mail app will then be written to the data directory. The file naming follows the following format: mail-{{userId}}-{{accountId}}-{{protocol}}.log (e.g., mail-admin-49-imap.log).
The debug logging for that specific account can be disabled once you’ve collected the necessary data by running the following command on the server:
occ mail:account:debug <accountId> --off
Globally
This enables logging of the IMAP/SMTP/Sieve connections for all mail accounts configured on the server. This should be used with caution as it can put a lot of strain on large environments.
Added in version 5.1.0.
To enable the global debug logging on versions 5.1.0 and above, just run the following command on the server:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set app.mail.debug --value true --type bool
All subsequent outgoing connections made by the mail app will then be written to the data directory. The file naming follows the following format: mail-{{userId}}-{{accountId}}-{{protocol}}.log (e.g., mail-admin-49-imap.log).
The global debug logging can be disabled once you’ve collected the necessary data by running the following command on the server:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set app.mail.debug --value false --type bool
Note
The following steps only apply to version 1.6.2 up to 5.0.8. Restrict logging of outgoing connections to a specific mail account is not available there.
Added in version 1.6.2.
To enable the global debug logging, it’s necessary to enable both the debug mode as well as debug logging for the whole nextcloud instance by running the following commands on the server:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set debug --value true --type bool
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set loglevel --value 0 --type int
All subsequent outgoing connections made by the mail app will then be written to the data directory. The file naming follows the following format: horde_{{protocol}}.log (e.g., horde_imap.log).
Once you’ve collected the necessary data, it’s highly recommended to disable the debug mode as well as resetting the loglevel to the default value by running the following commands:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set debug --value false --type bool
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set loglevel --value 2 --type int
Timeout and other connectivity issues
You can use OpenSSL to test and benchmark the connection from your nextcloud host to the IMAP/SMTP host.:
openssl s_time -connect imap.domain.tld:993
The output should look similar to this:
Collecting connection statistics for 30 seconds
***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
483 connections in 0.94s; 513.83 connections/user sec, bytes read 0
483 connections in 31 real seconds, 0 bytes read per connection
Now timing with session id reuse.
starting
*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
497 connections in 0.97s; 512.37 connections/user sec, bytes read 0
497 connections in 31 real seconds, 0 bytes read per connection
Manual account synchronization and threading
To troubleshoot synchronization or threading problems it’s helpful to run the sync from the command line while the user does not use the web interface (reduces chances of a conflict):
sudo -E -u www-data php occ mail:account:sync -vvv 1393
Note
1393 represents the account ID.
The command offers a --force option. Use it wisely as it doesn’t perform the same path a typical web triggered sync request would do.
The output will look similar to this:
[debug] Skipping mailbox sync for Archive
[debug] Skipping mailbox sync for Archive.2020
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - get all known UIDs took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - get new messages via Horde took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - persist new messages took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - get changed messages via Horde took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - persist changed messages took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - get vanished messages via Horde took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts - persist new messages took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:Drafts took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - get all known UIDs took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - get new messages via Horde took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - classified a chunk of new messages took 1s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - persist new messages took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - get changed messages via Horde took 1s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - persist changed messages took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - get vanished messages via Horde took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX - persist new messages took 0s
[debug] partial sync 1393:INBOX took 2s
[debug] Skipping mailbox sync for Sent
[debug] Skipping mailbox sync for Sentry
[debug] Skipping mailbox sync for Trash
[debug] Account 1393 has 19417 messages for threading
[debug] Threading 19417 messages - build ID table took 1s
[debug] Threading 19417 messages - build root container took 0s
[debug] Threading 19417 messages - free ID table took 0s
[debug] Threading 19417 messages - prune containers took 0s
[debug] Threading 19417 messages - group by subject took 0s
[debug] Threading 19417 messages took 1s
[debug] Account 1393 has 9839 threads
[debug] Account 1393 has 0 messages with a new thread IDs
62MB of memory used