Nextcloud sync delete - ignore 404 error

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

(see also Rclone should (optionally?) ignore 404 for DELETE , looks quite the same but for Swift, and seems solved)

I rclone sync a Nextcloud WebDAV server (https:// shadowtech.eu) with a large number of files (up to 250k files). Each DELETE action (by rclone sync, not rclone delete) first fails with log “ERROR : : Couldn't delete: File with name could not be located: Sabre\DAV\Exception\NotFound: 404 Not Found”.

2nd retry with --ignore-errors solves the problem, BUT :

  • timeout is considerably slowing down sync progress
  • retry is checking again ALL the files, not only those deleted (doubling time spent from 25min to 50min)
  • -- retries=0 doesn’t do anything (not even a first try then no retry !)
  • -- retries=1 does the same as not giving this option (ie 1 try and 1 retry)

Would it be possible to address this small issue, please (retries=0 should try to delete once, no more IMHO) ?

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.60.1-DEV

  • os/version: debian 13.2 (64 bit)
  • os/kernel: 6.18.0-rc6-edge-meson64 (aarch64)
  • os/type: linux
  • os/arch: arm64
  • go/version: go1.23.2
  • go/linking: dynamic
  • go/tags: none

not the latest one, but the current for armbian:

uname -a
Linux bpim5 6.18.0-rc6-edge-meson64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Nov 16 22:25:38 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux

apt search rclone
rclone/stable,now 1.60.1+dfsg-4 arm64 [installé]
  rsync for commercial cloud storage

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Nextcloud managed by https://shadow.tech/

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

ran in a small subfolder with 120 files:
```sudo /usr/bin/rclone -l -P --config=/rclone.conf--checkers=12 --transfers=8 sync /media/NextCloud-sda2/NextCloud-data/data/backups/ Shadow1_crypt1:NextCloud-data/data/backups --ignore-errors -vv --log-file=log```

The rclone config contents with secrets removed.

```[Shadow1]
type = webdav
url = https://drive.shadow.tech/remote.php/webdav
vendor = nextcloud
user = <redacted>
pass = <redacted>

[Shadow1_crypt1]
type = crypt
remote = Shadow1:Bpi_crypt
filename_encryption = off
directory_name_encryption = false
password = <redacted>```

A log from the command with the -vv flag

head -n20 log
```2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.60.1-DEV" starting with parameters ["/usr/bin/rclone" "-l" "-P" "--config=/scripts_ber/root/rclone.conf" "--checkers=12" "--transfers=8" "sync" "/media/NextCloud-sdx2/NextCloud-data/data/backups/" "Shadow1_crypt1:NextCloud-data/data/backups" "--ignore-errors" "-vv" "--log-file=log"]
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "/media/NextCloud-sdx2/NextCloud-data/data/backups/"
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : Using config file from "/scripts_ber/root/rclone.conf"
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : local: detected overridden config - adding "{b6816}" suffix to name
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : fs cache: renaming cache item "/media/NextCloud-sdx2/NextCloud-data/data/backups/" to be canonical "local{b6816}:/media/NextCloud-sdx2/NextCloud-data/data/backups"
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "Shadow1_crypt1:NextCloud-data/data/backups"
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "Shadow1:Bpi_crypt/NextCloud-data/data/backups.bin"
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : found headers: 
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "Shadow1:Bpi_crypt/NextCloud-data/data/backups"
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : found headers: 
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : calcardbackup-latest.rclonelink: Size and modification time the same (differ by -212.530362ms, within tolerance 1s)
2026/01/07 11:49:49 DEBUG : calcardbackup-latest.rclonelink: Unchanged skipping
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/anais=Personal.ics: Size and modification time the same (differ by -456.038175ms, within tolerance 1s)
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/bernard=Ber_25-26.webcal: Size and modification time the same (differ by -644.06068ms, within tolerance 1s)
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/anais=Personal.ics: Unchanged skipping
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/bernard=Ber_25-26.webcal: Unchanged skipping
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/bernard=Personal_DEL-CMPNTS.ics: Size and modification time the same (differ by -976.029083ms, within tolerance 1s)
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/bernard=Personal_DEL-CMPNTS.ics: Unchanged skipping
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/config.php: Size and modification time the same (differ by -265.755413ms, within tolerance 1s)
2026/01/07 11:49:50 DEBUG : calcardbackup-2026-01-07/helene=Contacts.vcf: Size and modification time the same (differ by -172.089631ms, within tolerance 1s)
...```

grep ERROR log
```2026/01/07 11:49:57 ERROR : calcardbackup-2025-12-31/bernard=Ber_25-26.webcal: Couldn't delete: File with name Bpi_crypt/NextCloud-data/data/backups/calcardbackup-2025-12-31/bernard=Ber_25-26.webcal.bin could not be located: Sabre\DAV\Exception\NotFound: 404 Not Found
2026/01/07 11:49:57 ERROR : calcardbackup-2025-12-31/nextcloud_ber.log: Couldn't delete: File with name Bpi_crypt/NextCloud-data/data/backups/calcardbackup-2025-12-31/nextcloud_ber.log.bin could not be located: Sabre\DAV\Exception\NotFound: 404 Not Found
2026/01/07 11:49:57 ERROR : calcardbackup-2025-12-31/helene=Contacts.vcf: Couldn't delete: File with name Bpi_crypt/NextCloud-data/data/backups/calcardbackup-2025-12-31/helene=Contacts.vcf.bin could not be located: Sabre\DAV\Exception\NotFound: 404 Not Found
2026/01/07 11:50:04 ERROR : Attempt 1/3 failed with 4 errors and: failed to delete 3 files
2026/01/07 11:50:05 ERROR : Attempt 2/3 succeeded```

no complete log file because post is limited in size...

welcome to the forum,

that is a 3+ years old, development version from an out of date distribution repository.

  1. uninstall that version
  2. https://rclone.org/install/#script-installation
  3. test again

@asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey) : Thank you very much !!
with rclone v1.72.1 now installed, I note:

  • no errors on logs for 404 ERROR
  • now I got lot of 409 ERRORS, I will investigate
  • still "ERROR : Attempt 1/3 failed with 3 errors and: failed to delete 2 files" and "ERROR : Attempt 2/3 succeeded", roughly 340000 checks for 170000 files, so for 2 files, there is still 2 complete attempts whereas I used ---ignore-errors (I don’t understand “listed” field)
  • same amount of time (50 min instead of a 25 min without delete) than v1.60.1-DEV, so I think timeout for 404 error still use a lot of time.
    I still think it could be improved by not waiting for 404 error and only attempting a 2nd try on deleted files (or not if --retry=0) BUT I'm not a developer and I don't want to be the bad guy bothering the developers! I do thank you for your great job !!

For Google and all people interested:
as of January 2026:

  • Debian rclone package is outdated (see Debian -- Package Search Results -- rclone v1.60.1+dfsg-4 instead of v1.72.1)
  • remove the package (apt remove rclone), use this Install instead
  • on Archlinux, extra/rclone 1.72.1-1 is newer than aur/rclone-git 1.67.0.r119.ge33436634-1 or aur/rclone-beta-bin 1.69.0_beta.8364.69897b97f-1

Thanks

You can get an idea of how up to date or not your OS distribution's package is here

I must be stupid…

I looked at my logs today and everything is perfect:

...
2026/01/10 04:49:54 ERROR : data/backups/calcardbackup-2026-01-02/bernard=Personal.ics: Couldn't delete: File with name Bpi_crypt/NextCloud-data/data/backups/calcardbackup-2026-01-02/bernard=Personal.ics.bin could not be located: Sabre\DAV\Exception\NotFound: 404 Not Found
2026/01/10 04:49:54 INFO  : data/backups/calcardbackup-2026-01-02: Removing directory
2026/01/10 04:50:01 ERROR : Attempt 1/1 failed with 18 errors and: failed to delete 17 files
2026/01/10 04:50:01 INFO  : 
Transferred:      777.587 MiB / 777.587 MiB, 100%, 167.854 KiB/s, ETA 0s
Errors:                18 (retrying may help)
Checks:            170854 / 170854, 100%, Listed 770445
Deleted:               17 (files), 1 (dirs), 35.077 MiB (freed)
Transferred:           60 / 60, 100%
Elapsed time:      32m7.8s

2026/01/10 04:50:01 NOTICE: Failed to sync with 18 errors: last error was: failed to delete 17 files

rclone v1.72.1 with “--retries=0 --ignore-errors” ran once, it took almost half the time, I must have tested the old version…

Kudos to the devs ! Sorry for the inconvenience.