[Bug]: Media keeps downloading after closing media player #3049
Description
⚠️ This issue respects the following points: ⚠️
- This is a bug, not a question or a configuration/webserver/proxy issue.
- This issue is not already reported on Github OR Nextcloud Community Forum (I've searched it).
- Nextcloud Server is up to date. See Maintenance and Release Schedule for supported versions.
- I agree to follow Nextcloud's Code of Conduct.
Bug description
After opening a video in the integrated Nextcloud player, it starts to download the whole video instead of streaming it for some reason. But after closing the player it still keeps downloading the file in the background until closing the webpage or going to another app within Nextcloud.
Steps to reproduce
- Open video file in files app.
- Video plays - now close the player with X in the upper right corner.
Expected behavior
Video should stop downloading if I closed the video player since it has no purpose anymore. Also it should stream play the file but that has nothing to do with this problem.
Nextcloud Server version
32
Operating system
Debian/Ubuntu
PHP engine version
PHP 8.1
Web server
Apache (supported)
Database engine version
PostgreSQL
Is this bug present after an update or on a fresh install?
Upgraded to a MAJOR version (ex. 31 to 32)
Are you using the Nextcloud Server Encryption module?
Encryption is Disabled
What user-backends are you using?
- Default user-backend (database)
- LDAP/ Active Directory
- SSO - SAML
- Other
Configuration report
List of activated Apps
Nextcloud Signing status
Nextcloud Logs
Additional info
No response
Activity
watermelon0339 commentedon Sep 6, 2026
This bug is still present in Nextcloud 34.0.3 and it severely impacts usability.
MP4 video playback requires full buffering before starting, instead of streaming with Range requests.
Opening an image preview in a folder also mounts
<video>elements, causing all videos in that folder to be cached unnecessarily. These behaviors waste bandwidth and make video preview almost unusable in production. Please prioritize fixing this issue — it has been reported for a long time and is blocking normal usage.Edit:
After further investigation, I found a temporary workaround: rewriting MP4 metadata using FFmpeg so that the moov atom is moved to the beginning of the file.
This makes some videos start streaming properly, but it is not a practical solution for real deployments — it requires reprocessing every video file and is not feasible for large libraries or user-uploaded content.
skjnldsv commentedon Oct 6, 2026
We will fixed it in 36 and above, we moved to a new viewer api.
See nextcloud-libraries/nextcloud-viewer#104
For 35 and under, the only option would be disabling the preloading entirely, but that would lose a lot of reactivity for a very random fact that some video have the moov at the end and some do not. Seeing the little activity (yet valuable, I'm not arguing agsinst that) on the topin, I would leave it as is. For 36, things will be cleaner