nextcloud/all-in-one · warning · InvalidSettingConfigurationException

You entered unallowed characters! Problematic is ${entry}

Error message

You entered unallowed characters! Problematic is ${entry}

What it means

Thrown by setAdditionalBackupDirectories when a line of the newline-separated input matches neither ^/[.0-9a-zA-Z/_-]+$ (absolute path) nor ^[.0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$ (bare name treated as a host directory under the docker volumes prefix). Entries are trimmed first, so whitespace alone is fine; any other character (colon, space inside the path, unicode, backslash) rejects that line.

Source

Thrown at php/src/Data/ConfigurationManager.php:986

    }

    public function deleteDailyBackupTime() : void {
        if (file_exists(DataConst::GetDailyBackupTimeFile())) {
            unlink(DataConst::GetDailyBackupTimeFile());
        }
        $this->dailyBackupFileCache = '';
        $this->dailyBackupFileMtime = 0;
    }

    public function setAdditionalBackupDirectories(string $additionalBackupDirectories) : void {
        $additionalBackupDirectoriesArray = explode("\n", $additionalBackupDirectories);
        $validDirectories = '';
        foreach($additionalBackupDirectoriesArray as $entry) {
            // Trim all unwanted chars on both sites
            $entry = trim($entry);
            if ($entry !== "") {
                if (!preg_match("#^/[.0-9a-zA-Z/_-]+$#", $entry) && !preg_match("#^[.0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$#", $entry)) {
                    throw new InvalidSettingConfigurationException("You entered unallowed characters! Problematic is " . $entry);
                }
                $validDirectories .= rtrim($entry, '/') . PHP_EOL;
            }
        }

        if ($validDirectories === '') {
            unlink(DataConst::GetAdditionalBackupDirectoriesFile());
        } else {
            file_put_contents(DataConst::GetAdditionalBackupDirectoriesFile(), $validDirectories);
        }
    }

    public function getAdditionalBackupDirectoriesString() : string {
        if (!file_exists(DataConst::GetAdditionalBackupDirectoriesFile())) {
            return '';
        }
        return (string)file_get_contents(DataConst::GetAdditionalBackupDirectoriesFile());
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 6b788eec5e)

Solutions

1. Use plain absolute Linux paths containing only letters, digits, dots, underscores, hyphens and slashes, one per line.
2. Remove spaces, colons and backslashes from each entry.
3. For directories with disallowed characters, create a symlink with a clean name on the host and add the symlink path instead.

Example fix

// before
$dirs = "/mnt/backup data\n/backups:ro";

// after
$dirs = "/mnt/backup_data\n/backups";

$ok = preg_match('#^/[.0-9a-zA-Z/_-]+$#', $entry) || preg_match('#^[.0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$#', $entry);
if (!$ok) {
    // sanitize or reject the line before submitting the form
}

When it happens

Trigger: Submitting additional_backup_directories containing entries like 'C:\data' (backslash), '/mnt/my data' (space), '/backups:ro' (colon), or relative paths with dots not matching the bare-name pattern such as '../etc'.

Common situations: Windows-style paths pasted into the form; copy-pasting paths with trailing remarks or spaces inside; assuming docker-style volume syntax (host:container:mode) is accepted here.

Related errors

• The daily backup time must not be empty!
• You did not enter a correct time! One correct example is '04
• Domain must contain at least one dot!
• Domain must not contain slashes!
• Domain must not contain colons!

AI-assisted analysis of nextcloud/all-in-one@6b788eec5e (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2a97516b07092743. Report an issue: GitHub.