Use date of upload instead of modification date to see if the file should be deleted

[js94x]

Steps to reproduce

1. upload a file with a modification date before 2014 using desktop client for windows
2. tag file with simple tag (e.g. "File") or use automated tagging
3. set up a retention rule to delete files tagged with "File" after 10 days
4. run cron.php from command line

Actual behaviour

The app uses modification date (could be years in the past) to decide whether the file should be deleted.

Expected behaviour

The Retentition app should note the upload date in Nextcloud instead of the modification date that was transferred from the desktop client. After my research in the database table oc_filecache, I have not found a field for the upload date.

Maybe you could use a hook in the retention app to perform a separate database entry which contains the date of the upload. If a extra field exists, you could decice in the preferences which date is used as criterium.

This background is as follows: I would like to use Nextcloud as a platform for temporary file exchange for friends, customers and others. Uploaded files should be deleted after x Days. But everytime I upload an older file from windows in the shared folder, the retention app would delete it after 24 hours at the latest.

Server configuration

Nextcloud version: 11.0.1

[nickvergessen]

Yeah that is a bit unfortunate. I noticed this as well lately.

[js94x]

Yeah that is a bit unfortunate. I noticed this as well lately.

Are there plans to integrate this feature into the retention app soon?

Currently I am using a cronjob with a find command on Linux which checks the ctime of files in the filesystem. This variant works basically but has many pitfalls. For example:

• ctime changes when file is modified, renamed or moved
• the deletion process bypasses Nextcloud, so:

1. Nextcloud does not recognize deletion immediately
2. If encryption is active the cronjob would become even more complex

[stekaa]

What do you think about using date values from table oc_activity? If a file is uploaded there is an record with timestamp and type "file_created". You can join tables oc_filecache and oc_activity by oc_filecache.fileid=oc_activity.object_id.

[nickvergessen]

No

[jkimalane]

The solution proposed by stekka seems quite plausible till db schema is altered to store upload timestamp in oc_filecache table. So I don't understand why did you responded with no.

[nickvergessen]

Because inter app dependencies are bad, activity is an app that may be disabled. file creation activities might be disabled, ...
Too many points of failure.

[jkimalane]

So is 'files' and yet files_retention uses data stored by it. So, what's the correct solution for this problem as obviously the core functionality of the files_retention app does not work correctly. So how can we fix this?

[nickvergessen]

files is a force enabled app and therefor different. Also the filecache table is not owned by the files app but the server itself.

[jkimalane]

So we have identified the show stopper but we haven't discussed any solution to overcome this. So as far I see, your solution seems to be a change or set of changes to the core itself.

[joopmartens]

I have placed a request for Nextcloud server to store the file upload datetimestamp into the database.
After this has been implemented the files_retention plugin can be changed to use this information for it's retention processing.

See: nextcloud/server#4403

[nickvergessen]

This was already reported in nextcloud/server#3572