NextCloud + OnlyOffice integration - Cannot write in .odt .docx files

[RandomLegend]

Hello everyone!

After i meticulously followed the tutorial on how to install NextCloud & OpenOffice, i now got the following situation and i cannot wrap my "nooby" head around this.
First things first:

• I got the base NextCloud functions working perfectly fine. Everything is intact and the only warning i have in the overview is the one thats described in the post. Everything is fine.
• I got Caddy running, and i can reach everything i need from their respective Domains (that is cloud.mydomain.de and office.mydomain.de).
• I got the OnlyOffice Server running, i got the welcome page.
• I got OnlyOffice connected with NextCloud.

Now come the following Problems:

1) I had to open ports for HTTP and HTTPS on my router pointing towards the UbuntuVM running the OnlyOffice docker. Why do i have to do this? If i dont, nextcloud wont connect to the OnlyOffice server properly. But when i deactivate it i can still open the welcome page of onlyoffice via the URL.
That way its also not behind the reverse_proxy of caddy afaik. So its a security issue imo. When i dont portforward, nextcloud will say its connected to onlyoffice but when i open any document it will say "Cannot reach OnlyOffice. Contact admin"

2) This is everything i can see when i try to open an .odt file

I cannot type anything in there. I cannot paste anything there. The menu bar only shoes thesaurus, speech and translate. Thats it.


To conclude:

I dont think its right that i have to portforward http / https (btw my router then changed to 61067 61068 automatically because 80 443 are used for the caddy jail.
And the whole onlyoffice suite is bugged and the connection to nextcloud seems janky.

The internet is full of similar problems but apperently its something different everytime. And i am not experienced enough to find the issue by myself.
Can someone help me figure this out?

 

[RandomLegend]

Alright - After going through every single output of every console i got during the installation. I saw that 2 points didnt work during the installation and i repeated them and now it works.

So: I could deactive the portforwarding to the office domain and the connection works. I can flawlessly work on .docx files on the android app but i cannot create .odt files. Well this is sad but i can work with that tbh.
It appears that my firefox browser is kicking me here because now i cant edit any type of document in it. But in the app it works and thats all i need.

Still i sometimes get errors regarding that template. Well i guess i can live with that.

 

[Basil Hendroff]

I can flawlessly work on .docx files on the android app but i cannot create .odt files. Well this is sad but i can work with that tbh.

If you log in to NC using a desktop browser, you should be able to create ODF files. I can't vouch for the mobile/desktop apps though as they may have limitations.

You may want to consider setting up Collabora as well. Refer to the resource Nextcloud and Collabora Integration. Collabora operates on ODF files by default.

Using a combination of the NC, OO and Collabora mobile apps, I seem to have all bases covered e.g. I'm able to create and edit both OOXML and ODF files.

Still i sometimes get errors regarding that template.

Can't say I've come across this issue. Something flaky in your environment I think.

 

[RandomLegend]

Hello Basil!

i feel honored to have you answer to this directly :-D

I never used docker before so this question might be a little nooby. But can i shutdown and stop the OnlyOffice docker on my ubuntu-server-vm, install the collabora docker and "switch" between them without much hassle?
I would create a new subdomain for collabora, configure my caddy to also point towards the ubuntu-server for that domain and that should be it? Or am i mistaken?

Thank you

 

[Basil Hendroff]

But can i shutdown and stop the OnlyOffice docker on my ubuntu-server-vm, install the collabora docker and "switch" between them without much hassle?

There's no need to stop OO. You can run both simultaneously and have a choice of app for the task at hand. MS Office users will find the OO layout more familiar. while LibreOffice users will be more comfortable with the Collabora layout.

I would create a new subdomain for collabora, configure my caddy to also point towards the ubuntu-server for that domain and that should be it?

Spot on.

 

[RandomLegend]

There's no need to stop OO. You can run both simultaneously and have a choice of app for the task at hand. MS Office users will find the OO layout more familiar. while LibreOffice users will be more comfortable with the Collabora layout.

Yeah i thought so, however I do have to stop OO then because i only got 16GiB of Ram on my Server and i dont want to use up 8GiB only for the document servers. But actually i dont need to. If i get collabora running i will use that. I use libreoffice only on my computer and i just went for the onlyoffice because someone else said it's dead easy....well it wasnt easy but manageable for me.

So i just do myself a favour, clone the ubuntu vm that i use for only office, shut that thing down and try my hands on collabora.

Thank you very much for the help! If this doesnt go well i can always come back to onlyoffice because it works...although i dont really like onlyoffice but its enough.

Have a great day and stay safe!

 

[Basil Hendroff]

So i just do myself a favour, clone the ubuntu vm that i use for only office, shut that thing down and try my hands on collabora

No need to clone the VM. You can selectively run containers or run multiple containers simultaneously from the one VM. My servers are also limited to 16GB.

 

[RandomLegend]

yeah i am currently working on it. i kinda had to clone the vm because for some obscure reason i cannot VNC nor SSH on the ubuntu vm that runs OO right now...It says no route to host
But OO is working perfectly fine...well i will see how it goes.

 

[RandomLegend]

Alright - so i have no idea on how exactly i screwed up the onlyoffice VM but it went haywire and is gone.

BUT

i made collabora work flawlessly and i just like the UI so much more! Yeah so its works perfectly fine. I just deleted the OO VM and now i'm happy.

 

[RandomLegend]

@Patrick M. Hausen & @Basil Hendroff

I want to thank you both so much! Your work here, helping the beginners in such a patient way. I love it. I remember some communities about some topics i joined were so toxic and gatekeeping. This community is something different! You helped me so much and made my current setup possible. Its because of you guys.

Thank you for your work! I hope, some day i will be knowledgeable enough to also help beginners like that.