CameraUpload no longer works

[jnweiger]

"Version 2.11.0-beta.1 release f280dd0" on a Samsung S4 with Android 5.0.1

When enabling Camer-Upload, I get a requester:

a) It asks the user to find the folder where the camera stores images. Please add some instructions how to find that folder. This is a tedious thing to do manually, no other app ever asked me this. The "Camera-Folder (Optional)" is /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera which is some default or inherited?

b) The Camera-Folder is flagged "Optional", which contradicts the warning It should says "Important" instead of optional.

c) The requester says, uploads are now delayed 15 Minutes. This makes the CameraUpload mostly useless. Uploading manually is now usually faster.

I've joined the WLAN, made sure my CameraUpload folder exists on the server.
Taken a photo, waited one hour.
But no upload occurs.

[jnweiger]

Camera Upload also did not work on the version I had before. Google play said I had 2.10.1 while the settings page of my android app said owncloud Android-App Version 2.8.0-beta.1 -- not sure which was correct.

[jesmrec]

first of all, thanks for reporting!!

a) It asks the user to find the folder where the camera stores images. Please add some instructions how to find that folder. This is a tedious thing to do manually, no other app ever asked me this. The "Camera-Folder (Optional)" is /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera which is some default or inherited?

This folder is the usual one in which the built-in camera stores the pics. In case you have other camera apps, you have to switch to the new path (this is the target of making this selectable). I agree this is tedious, but i do not imagine other option to choose automatically other camera apps' folders. We can think about more specific instructions to select/check the camera folder is correct. Ideas are welcome

b) The Camera-Folder is flagged "Optional", which contradicts the warning It should says "Important" instead of optional.

This is interesting. For versions older than Android 7, camera folder is not required so the warning should be different.

c) The requester says, uploads are now delayed 15 Minutes. This makes the CameraUpload mostly useless. Uploading manually is now usually faster.

The use case is taking pics and forgetting to upload them manually. If you are in a sightseeing taking pics, no matter if your pics are uploaded now or 15 mins later. If you need the pics in the moment, the options are:

• Upload manually
• Upload from the camera (in floating button over file list)

trying to cover all necesities

I've joined the WLAN, made sure my CameraUpload folder exists on the server.
Taken a photo, waited one hour.
But no upload occurs.

This is something that we need to dive in. More users complain about, but this is not reproducible in our side. Android versions/subversions, vendor layers, camera apps... many factors involved. Version 2.11 to be released very soon will include in Settings the option Logs. Clean logs could help to check what's going on.

Camera Upload also did not work on the version I had before. Google play said I had 2.10.1 while the settings page of my android app said owncloud Android-App Version 2.8.0-beta.1 -- not sure which was correct.

This is very weird. 2.10.1 is the latest release. Maybe some problem with joining the Google Play beta program, since the last beta is 2.11-beta1 instead of 2.8. Is there any restriction in versioning with beta @davigonz ? afaik, it shouldn't

[jnweiger]

If there is only one camera app, can`t we query its folder?

My use case is an artists workshop, where students draw images, I take photos and the photos appear in a shared folder. Then we post process the images digitally during the class.

I have not found that floating button yet (probably not in android 5 ?) so I need to click through all files. That is a regression. Immediate upload as we had it before was better suited for that.

Can we make the delay a configurable option please? That would also raise awareness, that the delay is intentional.

[jesmrec]

If there is only one camera app, can`t we query its folder?

because we can not assure such folder will be the same for every vendor. Anyway, we can think a bit as well, if there is a more friendly way to set up.

Floating button is the '+' button in the bottom right corner of the file list:

don't you see it in Android 5? this would be really a big bug.

Can we make the delay a configurable option please? That would also raise awareness, that the delay is intentional.

Unfortunately this is not in our hands. Instant uploads worked thanks a background process that checked new pics from the camera folder to be queued to the uploads service at the moment. Actually (from Android 5, if i remember correctly), Android is cutting off background processes, therefore we can not maintain such way (blaming on Google!!!). Job Scheduler from Android 5 is the way to check for new pics, and it is internally executed every 15 minutes minimum. There is no way to change this value programatically, afaik (is that correct @davigonz?)

[davigonz]

There is no way to change this value programatically, afaik (is that correct @davigonz?)

There's a way to change it, but never below 15 minutes => https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/%2B/master/core/java/android/app/job/JobInfo.java#137

It's what Android OS and even other mobile systems try to do in terms of battery saving.

[madmaxoft]

Link: #2328 This could be a bit of a workaround, if implemented.

The problem that pictures don't get uploaded within reasonable time (sometimes taking days before the upload starts) happens to me quite often. Is there any way I could help tracking this down? I have a European LG G4 (H815) with Android 6.0 using the default camera app. Owncloud versions 2.9.0-beta.2, 2.8.0 and now 2.11.1 release f5c5096 (installed through F-Droid) are all affected by the bug. Not sure what the "vendor layers" you mentioned are.

I have some slight experience debugging an Android app of my own, so I can offer that:
From the ADB output I can see that the CameraUploadsSyncJobService is not even started, its log message doesn't appear in my logcat for hours. Just out of curiosity I tried to start the service manually through ADB (adb shell am startservice -n com.owncloud.android/com.owncloud.android.files.services.CameraUploadsSyncJobService --user <OC_UID>), this results in a null pointer exception, but it seems to have finally unplugged something so the service started on its own a few minutes later.

[madmaxoft]

On a side note, https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/job/JobInfo.Builder.html#addTriggerContentUri(android.app.job.JobInfo.TriggerContentUri) seems to describe exactly what we want, but is only for API >= 24

[jnweiger]

The floating (+) button exists only in the owncloud app for me. (as shown in your screenshot). No such button, if I access the list of photos from the camera or from the photo gallery.
No problem. Just a confusiton on my side. sorry. I had hoped something should show up on the camera, so that the upload can be automated...

Manual uploading is bad, when the background job is also active: It results in duplicate uploads later....

[jesmrec]

The manual forcing is another solution for sure, but we are trying to know why the JobScheduler is not working properly in specific devices, while in other devices is working like a charm. @madmaxoft could you send us logs with the not-successful execution of camera uploads? let us know if you need any help. Logs are caught in Settings view, and enabled by tapping 5 times in the build number (bottom of Settings view). Thanks in advance.

[hannesa2]

Here is a attempt to fix it #2679

[madmaxoft]

@jesmrec Sorry for the late reply, I was trying, quite unsuccessfully, to catch the app red-handed. Usually I take a picture, then a few days later I look for it in OwnCloud server and it's not there, so I check the logs, but the relevant timeframe is long gone.
Finally today I got something. Log excerpt:

2019/11/04 18:28:19 V: ConnectivityActionReceiver : action: android.net.wifi.STATE_CHANGE
2019/11/04 18:28:19 V: ConnectivityActionReceiver : component: ComponentInfo{com.owncloud.android/com.owncloud.android.broadcastreceivers.ConnectivityActionReceiver}
2019/11/04 18:28:19 V: ConnectivityActionReceiver : key [networkInfo]: [type: WIFI[], state: CONNECTED/CONNECTED, reason: (unspecified), extra: "<redacted>", roaming: false, failover: false, isAvailable: true, network type: 1]
2019/11/04 18:28:19 V: ConnectivityActionReceiver : key [wifiInfo]: SSID: <redacted>, BSSID: <redacted>, MAC: <redacted>, Supplicant state: COMPLETED, RSSI: -53, Link speed: 65Mbps, Frequency: 2462MHz, Net ID: 0, Metered hint: false, score: 60
2019/11/04 18:28:19 V: ConnectivityActionReceiver : key [linkProperties]: {InterfaceName: wlan0 LinkAddresses: [192.168.0.101/24,]  Routes: [fe80::/64 -> :: wlan0,192.168.0.0/24 -> 0.0.0.0 wlan0,0.0.0.0/0 -> 192.168.0.1 wlan0,] DnsAddresses: [192.168.0.1,] Domains:  MTU: 0 TcpBufferSizes: 524288,2097152,4194304,262144,524288,1048576}
2019/11/04 18:28:19 V: ConnectivityActionReceiver : key [bssid]: <redacted>
2019/11/04 18:28:19 D: ConnectivityActionReceiver : WiFi connected
2019/11/04 18:28:19 D: ConnectivityActionReceiver : Requesting retry of camera uploads (& friends)
2019/11/04 21:06:53 D: release : start logging 2.13.1 6a5f775cf
2019/11/04 21:06:53 V: FileDisplayActivity : onCreate() start
2019/11/04 21:06:53 D: FileDisplayActivity : onCreate(Bundle) starting
2019/11/04 21:06:53 D: FeatureList : Version string is incorrect 0

Note that there's a gap from 18:28:19 till 21:06:53. I took a picture at 18:36:01, and I opened the app manually at around 21:06. The log suggests that in between there was no activity at all from the app, almost as if it crashed just when retrying uploads. There are also about 120 older photos (up to month old) that I took and aren't uploaded yet (and the app shows no intention of uploading them). I know this probably doesn't help much, but I have no idea how else to help. I can send the full log file (140 KiB) by email, if useful. There are a few similar cases - Requesting retry of camera uploads followed by release : start logging after some time has passed, with no other messages in between.

Now, just as I'm writing this (21:36), the app suddenly started uploading all the old photos.

[jesmrec]

Thanks @madmaxoft

@hannesa2 has sent a posible fix for the problem based in retrying the pics after changes of connectivity: #2679

We expect to release this inside the incoming 2.14 version. Once it is out, your feedback will be appreciated.

[madmaxoft]

Does version 2.14.2 release fe23fedb4 contain the fix? If so, it still doesn't work, I'm still left with a backlog of over a month of photos not uploaded.

Fortunately for me, I found a workaround to force the upload instantly: #2328 (comment)

[jesmrec]

Camera uploads handling is totally new. Feel free to reopen in case.