[Owncloud] How to cleanly re-install an app?

[Christian Reiner]

Hi, 
there is some glitch in the description you found in "a owncloud forum" 
(where?). I think this should be noted down more precise. 
This _might_ be the problem you ran into, but I cannot say for sure. Maybe you 
face some alltogether different issue. 

On Friday 15 February 2013 12:00:20 Sampath Basnagoda wrote:
> I found following post in a owncloud forum.()
> 
> If you're having problems with an app (e.g. it won't activate, or doesn't
> work properly, or especially if there is some remainder from a previous
> installation), it is always worth a try to cleanly remove the app and
> reinstalling it from scratch:
> 
> To manually remove an app:
> 
>    1. As always before possibly dangerous changes, backup your database and
>    files
>    2. Go to the database administration tool of your choice, e.g.
>    phpmyadmin for mysql
>    3. In the table oc_appconfig, find all entries having the name of the
>    app as appid (e.g. "roundcube" or "gallery")
>    4. Remove those entries
>    5. Find tables created by the extension (e.g. "oc_roundcube" for
>    roundcube app), and drop them
>    6. In the apps directory, search for the directory with the name of the
>    app
>    7. Delete that directory
> 
> 
> To (re)install an app:
> 
>    1. If it's an app which is included in the default owncloud
>    installation, go to the "Apps" configuration section as administrative
>    user; the app will have an entry there, enabling the app will download
> the files of the app to your installation (so the "apps" directory has to
> be writable by php for this method to work).
>    2. If it's a custom app, or you want to install the latest version: Read
>    the INSTALL instructions of the app (usually, extract it to the "apps"
>    subfolder of owncloud, and then go to the "Apps" configuration section as
> administrative user and enable it

This last paragraph contains the glitches, two actually: 
1.) it is incorrect that only the apps inside the "default installation" 
(whatever that is) are automatically downloaded. 
Instead it is all apps that are published inside the app store at 
apps.owncloud.com that are marked as being compatible with this version. Those 
might also be 3rd party apps or apps simply not included in the standard 
installation packages. 
As a rule of thumb: if an app is offered for activation inside the 
administrations app section then have a try. ownCloud will attempt to 
download, install and activate the app when you chose to "activate" it. There 
might still be issues with activating the app 8obviouosly), but those issues 
strike independant of whether you try to install the app manually or 
automatically. 
2.) when manually installaing an app by unpacking it into the installations 
'app' folder it is of importance how to name that folder you unpack the app 
into. ownCloud is over sensitive in these folders naming scheme. Unfortunately 
ownCloud silently stumbles about violations of that naming scheme instead of 
stating a clear error: 
Make sure that the apps folders name you create (you put the apps files into) 
does _not_ contain any dashes or the like ("-"). If you want to concatenate 
two name parts from the apps name (e.g. "Shorty Tracking") then do so by using 
an underscore (so "shorty_tracking"). Do not add any fancy numbers, dashes or 
other characters. Keep the name really simple and lower case. 
This is annoying insofar as the apps store itself uses a different naming 
scheme ("<number>-<appname>-<version>.zip") which does not really help in 
this...
This issue is documented in the bug tracker: 
https://github.com/owncloud/core/issues/1376

Have a try, this _might_ be the reason why your installation stumbles when you 
try to manually install that app. 
Good luck. 

Christian Reiner (arkascha)