Debugging the issue¶

In a standard ownCloud installation the log level is set to Normal. To find any issues you need to raise the log level to All from the Admin page. Please see Logging Configuration for more informations on this log levels.

Some logging - for example JavaScript console logging - needs manually editing the configuration file. Edit config/config.php and add define('DEBUG', true);:

<?php
define('DEBUG',true);
$CONFIG = array (
    ... configuration goes here ...
);

For JavaScript issues you will also need to view the javascript console. All major browsers have decent developer tools for viewing the console, and you usually access them by pressing F-12. For Firefox it is recommended to install the Firebug extension.

Debugging Sync-Issues¶

Disregarding this can lead to unwanted behaviours like:

• Problems with sync clients
• Undetected changes due to caching in the database

If you need to directly upload files from the same server please use a WebDAV command line client like cadaver to upload files to the WebDAV interface at:

https://example.org/owncloud/remote.php/webdav

Common problems / error messages¶

Some common problems / error messages found in your logfiles as described above:

• SQLSTATE[HY000] [1040] Too many connections -> You need to increase the connection limit of your database, please refer to the manual of your database for more informations.
• SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 5 database is locked -> You’re using SQLite which can’t handle a lot of parallel requests. Please consider converting to another database like described in Converting From SQLite to MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL.
• SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away -> The database request takes too long and therefore the MySQL server times out. Its also possible that the server is dropping a too large packet. Please refer to the manual of your database how to raise the config options wait_timeout and/or max_allowed_packet.
• SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory -> There is a problem accessing your SQLite database file in your datadirectory (data/owncloud.db). Please check the permissions of this folder/file or if it exists at all. If you’re using MySQL please start your database.
• Connection closed / Operation cancelled -> This could be caused by wrong KeepAlive settings within your Apache config. Make sure that KeepAlive is set to On and also try to raise the limits of KeepAliveTimeout and MaxKeepAliveRequests.
• No basic authentication headers were found -> This error is shown in your data/owncloud.log file. Some Apache modules like mod_fastcgi, mod_fcgid or mod_proxy_fcgi are not passing the needed authentication headers to PHP and so the login to ownCloud via WebDAV, CalDAV and CardDAV clients is failing. Information on how to correctly configure your environment can be found at the forums.

Logfiles¶

When having issues the first step is to check the logfiles provided by PHP, the Webserver and ownCloud itself.

• The logfile of Apache2 is located in /var/log/apache2/error.log.
• The logfile of PHP can be configured in your /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini. You need to set the directive log_errors to On and choose the path to store the logfile in the error_log directive. After those changes you need to restart your Webserver.
• The logfile of ownCloud is located in the datadirectory /var/www/owncloud/data/owncloud.log.

Webserver and PHP modules¶

There are some Webserver or PHP modules which are known to cause various problems like broken up-/downloads. The following shows a draft overview over this modules:

1. Apache

• mod_pagespeed
• mod_evasive
• mod_security
• mod_reqtimeout
• mod_deflate
• libapache2-mod-php5filter (use libapache2-mod-php5 instead)
• mod_spdy together with libapache2-mod-php5 / mod_php (use fcgi or php-fpm instead)
• mod_dav
• mod_xsendfile / X-Sendfile (causing broken downloads if not configured correctly)

2. NginX

• ngx_pagespeed
• HttpDavModule
• X-Sendfile (causing broken downloads if not configured correctly)

3. Mac OS X server

• mod_auth_apple
• com.apple.webapp.webdavsharing

4. LigHTTPd

• ModWebDAV
• X-Sendfile2 (causing broken downloads if not configured correctly)

5. PHP

• eAccelerator

Service discovery¶

Some clients - especially iOS - have problems finding the proper sync URL, even when explicitly configured to use it.

There are several techniques to remedy this, which are described extensively at the Sabre DAV website.

Apple iOS¶

Below is what have proven to work with iOS including iOS 7.

If your ownCloud instance is installed in a subfolder under the web server’s document root and the client has difficulties finding the Cal- or CardDAV end-points, configure your web server to redirect from a “well-know” URL to the one used by ownCloud. When using the Apache web server this is easily achieved using a .htaccess file in the document root of your site.

Say your instance is located in the owncloud folder, so the URL to it is ADDRESS/owncloud, create or edit the .htaccess file and add the following lines:

Redirect 301 /.well-known/carddav /owncloud/remote.php/carddav
Redirect 301 /.well-known/caldav /owncloud/remote.php/caldav

If you use lighttpd as web server, the setting looks something like:

url.redirect = (
    "^/.well-known/carddav" => "/owncloud/remote.php/carddav",
    "^/.well-known/caldav" => "/owncloud/remote.php/caldav",
)

Now change the URL in the client settings to just use ADDRESS instead of e.g. ADDRESS/remote.php/carddav/principals/username.

This problem is being discussed in the forum.

Unable to update Contacts or Events¶

If you get an error like PATCH https://ADDRESS/some_url HTTP/1.0 501 Not Implemented it is likely caused by one of the following reasons:

Outdated lighttpd web server

lighttpd in debian wheezy (1.4.31) doesn’t support the PATCH HTTP verb. Upgrade to lighttpd >= 1.4.33.

Using Pound reverse-proxy/load balancer

As of writing this Pound doesn’t support the HTTP/1.1 verb. Pound is easily patched to support HTTP/1.1.