What causes "not found (folder/file not in database)" in syncthing/syncthing?

List actual folder IDs: syncthing cli config folders

not found (folder/file not in database)

Error message

not found (folder/file not in database)

What it means

Produced by the CLI's indexDumpOutput when the db endpoint GET returns 404 (mapped from errNotFound). It means the REST call succeeded but the daemon has no database entry for the requested folder ID (db/status) or folder/file path (db/file).

Source

Thrown at cmd/syncthing/cli/utils.go:52

	}
	_, err = client.Post(url, "")
	return err
}

func indexDumpOutputWrapper(apiClientFactory *apiClientFactory) func(url string) error {
	return func(url string) error {
		return indexDumpOutput(url, apiClientFactory)
	}
}

func indexDumpOutput(url string, apiClientFactory *apiClientFactory) error {
	client, err := apiClientFactory.getClient()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	response, err := client.Get(url)
	if errors.Is(err, errNotFound) {
		return errors.New("not found (folder/file not in database)")
	}
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return prettyPrintResponse(response)
}

func saveToFile(url string, apiClientFactory *apiClientFactory) error {
	client, err := apiClientFactory.getClient()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	response, err := client.Get(url)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	_, params, err := mime.ParseMediaType(response.Header.Get("Content-Disposition"))
	if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to 058bcd7334)

Solutions

List actual folder IDs: syncthing cli config folders
Trigger a rescan and retry: syncthing cli operations scan <folderID>
For db/file, pass the path relative to the folder root exactly as stored (case-sensitive on Linux)
Confirm the folder is shared and has synced at least once (syncthing cli show index db/status)

Example fix

# before
syncthing cli show index db/file documents /home/user/Documents/report.txt
# -> not found (folder/file not in database)

# after: path relative to folder root
syncthing cli show index db/file documents report.txt

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// verify the folder exists before dumping its index
folders, err := client.GetJSON("rest/config/folders")
if !folderExists(folders, folderID) {
    return fmt.Errorf("unknown folder %q; run 'syncthing cli config folders'", folderID)
}

Try / catch

err := indexDumpOutput(url, factory)
if errors.Is(err, errNotFound) || strings.Contains(err.Error(), "not found (folder/file not in database)") {
    // wrong ID or path: list folders / rescan, do not retry unchanged
}

Prevention

Always enumerate valid folder IDs from config instead of guessing
Rescan newly added folders before querying db/file
Pass file paths relative to the folder root, matching the OS case sensitivity

When it happens

Trigger: 'syncthing cli show index db/status <folderID>' or 'db/file <folderID> <path>' where the folder ID is not in the daemon's config, the folder exists but was never scanned into the database, or the file path does not match any indexed item.

Common situations: Folder ID typo (case-sensitive); folder just added and not yet scanned; querying db/file with a path relative to the wrong root; querying a paused/unshared folder with an empty index.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of syncthing/syncthing@058bcd7334 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8967d382f44cf24e. Report an issue: GitHub.