this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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And it failed spectacularly.

We only needed a simple form, but we wanted to be fancy, so we used "nextcloud forms".

The docker image automatically updated the install to nextcloud 30, but the forms app requires nextcloud 29 or lower. No warning whatsoever. It's an official app, couldn't they wait that it was ready for NC 30 before launching it? The newsletter boasts "NC hub 9 is the best thing after sliced bread" yet i don't see any difference both in visual or performance compared to NC hub 2

Conclusion: we made our business to rely on nextcloud forms as a signup form, but the only reason we were using it was disabled who knows how many weeks ago.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Literally just googled "nextcloud forms" and looked at their supported versions and whaddya know, it says right on that webpage that there's no stable version for 30 yet, so safe bet would be that it wouldn't properly work when upgrading:

There is a supported nightly build, though, so you could probably have tried that

It's on you to look up what will break when you update, or to test and see what happens when you do. A major update page isn't going to list all of the things that rely on it that break because that's fucking unreasonable

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

go to watch who is the maintainer of nextcloud forms, then see if they could have known that NC 30 was about to go out or not

It's definitely not unreasonable that if I make product X and I make product Y, and they're not compatible, then a bit of warning is suggested.

Again, wordpress updates break plugins all the time, but automattic plugins (same people of wordpress) never break. Coincidence? They just launch a new wordpress without checking if woocommerce or jetpack don't work?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

then a bit of warning is suggested

Which was given by the app that gets broken by the update

Windows doesn't tell you that upgrading to 11 will break x, y, and z that you have installed, you're expected to go to the sites for those programs and check if they work. Same exact idea

The same company making both apps is never a guarantee that they'll play nice day 1, for many reasons

I'll repeat: learn from your mistake instead of blaming other people for your naivete. If an app is important and might break during an update of something: check the apps documentation to see if it supports said update

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok i get it, it's best practice to do rushed releases without QA because users are the free testers.

They definitely had no way to know that their own app was incompatible, this is definitely a problem of the stupid user. Idiot user who believed their newsletter "update now, hub 9 is the best thing ever". The user should have known that stable = untested beta

Also, this issue happened exclusively to me in the whole world, because everyone else isn't an idiot like me and checks 30+ release notes scattered in 30 different repositories to guess any incompatibility. I was lazy and only checked the main notes! Such an idiot! Why I didn't check every single installed app? It's just 30! Nextcloud devs couldn't have known that nextcloud devs didn't update the manifest of the forms app! I should have checked before! Completely my fault!

Now if you excuse me I got an update to the Windows nextcloud desktop app and it must reboot after update because reasons even if there's a GitHub issue with 200 angry comments about that. No wait! Stupid me! First I have to fire a VM and use a whole week to write automated tests that account for every possible combination of settings, language, power management, installed apps and so on. Otherwise I could lose a worthless survey that nobody reads and that will definitely get me fired!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ok i get it, it's best practice to do rushed releases without QA because users are the free testers.

You literally used the wrong version. As I stated: the app you're talking about clearly states it does not have a stable release for the version of nextcloud you're running.

They definitely had no way to know that their own app was incompatible

They knew, and told you, right on the app page

Idiot user who believed their newsletter "update now, hub 9 is the best thing ever

You said it, not me. I tried being nice but that really is what happened: you fell for what the marketing team wrote and skipped basic IT steps in doing so. Now, rather than just admit you made a mistake that a LOT of people have made (including me, I'm a fucking idiot too) you are whining and doing your best to me talk gymnastics this into you being a victim of something

How you managed to convince your IT department of anything with a knowledge that shallow and an attitude like that I'll never know. Grow up.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

When on my personal install the music app was broken after an update for months, I didn't complain at all. Because I went to see who was the maintainer: owncloud. Not their fault. In this case was my fault. Definitely my fault and without sarcasm. A third party plugin is expected to have problems after updates. Completely understandable. They're even competitors.

First party plugins instead, MUST work at all times versus the latest stable release. It's the reason I didn't check compatibility.

This is the concept I want to say. It's not hard. I'm not saying "the update process must be idiot proof". When shit like this happens, it completely erodes trust in users. It's not stable, it's beta. It's a tiny detail. It's just a number on the manifest. What does it cost to update that number to 30 for the forms app? (The "incompatible" version runs perfectly fine when the check is overridden)

But no, let's defend this behavior of moving fast and breaking things for no reason, like that issue thread on GitHub where users are rightfully pissed that the Windows nextcloud desktop client reboots without confirmation and fanboys are dismissing it "eh the cloud indicators in explorer.exe are so important, must reboot at all times, what's the problem"

Do you agree that first party stuff must work? (unless it's discontinued)

Would you expect Microsoft Office 365 being disabled after upgrading to Microsoft Windows 11?

And finally, how I persuaded the it department. Here I make a list of all the members:



We were just searching a way to host a worthless survey that nobody is watching instead of paying $350 to Surveymonkey. We drank the marketing cool aid and assumed that something heavily promoted just 6 months ago would be supported. But this is unreasonable.

Solution 1: waste a week doing your suggested way of multiple installs and custom unit tests and every quarter check carefully everything because nextcloud "stable" is as stable as a house of cards.

Solution 2: delete nextcloud and write a form in PHP+HTML in an afternoon, don't have the same problem with nextcloud 31 next quarter.