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Frequently asked Questions

Questions about accounts

My account name has changed. What do I have to do?

If your account name has changed (e.g. because you have moved to another university and have received a new ID), you must register again. Unfortunately, you cannot continue to use your old account. If necessary, you can manually move your data from the old to the new account.

My name has changed. What do I have to do?

As long as your ID has not changed, you only need to renew your sciebo account in my.sciebo to update your data.

My e-mail address has changed. What do I have to do?

As long as your ID has not changed, you only need to renew your sciebo account in my.sciebo to update your data.

I left the university and cannot access my account anymore. What can I do?

Once you have left your institution, you cannot extend your sciebo account anymore. Your account will be locked after a grace period of a year after the last extension and afterward deleted. If you have forgotten to back up your files, you can open a support ticket.

I am a student and need more than 30 GB of storage. What can I do?

Unfortunately, students cannot increase their storage volume at the moment.

I am an employee and need more than 500 GB of storage. What can I do?

You can apply for a project box.

I am a guest and want to reset my password.

Please notify your sponsor; they can send you a password reset link via the guest management in mysciebo.

Why do I have to extend my account once per year?

Once per year you have to confirm that you are still eligble to use sciebo. The grant conditions of the state of NRW require that only students and employees of participating institutes may use sciebo. Having users confirm their eligibility once per year affords us to offer a grace period, whereas other approaches where we get the confirmation automatically from the institutes would mean that you lose access to sciebo the second you are not member of the institute anymore.

Access to files

Can I access my sciebo account via SMB/FTP/SSH?

No, the protocols mentioned are not supported. You can use sciebo via the web interface, the desktop client or the apps.

Can I access my sciebo account via WebDAV?

In general, it is possible to use sciebo via WebDAV, but we do not recommend this and do not offer any support for this. It is best to use sciebo via the web interface, the desktop client or the apps.

I have left the university and can no longer access my account. What can I do?

If you leave your institution, you can no longer renew your sciebo account, and it will be blocked after a grace period (of max. 1 year from the last renewal) and subsequently deleted. If you forgot to back up your data before the blocking, open a support ticket.

I have a server on which I cannot install the client, but I want to exchange files via sciebo?

rclone can be run well on several headless platforms. Please note that rclone is not as smart as the sciebo client when it comes to discovering changes, so please use it to sync as infrequently as you can afford on larger datasets or explicitly check for changes of small subsets of your data.

Data has disappeared from my account. What can I do?

There may be various reasons why data can no longer be found. First check the following solutions:

  • If you have deleted data by mistake, you can restore it within 7 days (depending on the available storage space also considerably longer), provided you are the owner of the data. To do this, log in to the web interface and select the recycle bin in the left menu bar. You can restore the data listed there directly.
  • If data that was shared with you is missing, contact the person who shared the data. They may be able to restore the share or data (if it was accidentally deleted). Also note that data shared by a user will no longer be available if his or her sciebo account is deleted.

If your data could not be restored in this way, open a support ticket. Please also remember to make regular backups of your data.

Questions about the clients

Why am I unable to select or deselect folders for synchronizing on the desktop client?

If - despite the client being connected - there are no options for selecting or deselecting folders, it is usually because your client uses the Virtual File System (VFS). There only metadata is being synchronized to your system and files are being downloaded on demand, so only very little disk space is used.

What is Virtual File System (VFS) and what do I need to be aware of?

The VFS is a Feature which can be used on Windows or Mac to use only very little diskspace. Files are only downloaded on demand and reflected by placeholder files.

However, on the downside you can not make backups from your sciebo files this way, so this is mainly an option for workstations shared by multiple users.

Questions about Overleaf

How can I share in overleaf?

The webinterface lies: overleaf does not send e-mails. You can only share with people who have logged into the sciebo overleaf at least once and created a project. Then you can share with their regular sciebo ID they use at their sciebo instance; you do not need to use the federated ID (the one with the double @).

Can we enable additional features like zotero integration or GitHub in overleaf?

We currently use a (somewhat dated) version of the open source version of overleaf, which can be found at GitHub and are unable to provide additional features. The current featureset is somewhere between their proprietary free and basic tier.

Why is Overleaf not sending emails? Can I import or export data to and from sciebo?

Also, sending emails to other (especially external) users is not possible. To share a project, the receiver has to log in at least once into Overleaf and create a project.

Can I import or export data from overleaf to sciebo or vice versa?

Sadly no. The current installation is only partially integrated in sciebo. It is therefore currently not possible to im- or export data from sciebo directly.

It is possible however, to export and import projects as .zip-files.

Can additional features like the Zotero or Github-integration be activated in Overleaf?

Since we use the open source version of Overleaf from GitHub as it is, it is currently not possible to add additional features.

Questions about the web interface

Can I include members from other instances to custom groups?

Unfortunately, this is currently not possible.

Where have the (custom)groups gone?

Probably your sciebo instance has been migrated to Nextcloud. Groups can now be found under Contacts/Teams.

I am asked about a second factor despite not having one set up

This is sadly a known bug during the Nextcloud migration. Please open a support ticket with your university e-mail adress.

Miscellaneous

How can I receive large files from externals?

If you only need to receive a couple of files once, but which are too large for email attachments, you can use a public link filedrop. For this log into the webinterface and create a folder in which you want to receive the file(s) and then click the share button; there you select the tab "public links" and then you create a link with password, expiry date and upload rights. Please do not use the built-in mail function, but just create the link. Once the link is created, you can copy it to your clipboard from the right side menu in the webinterface and then send it, together with the password, to the person(s) you want to receive files from.

Why do I need to make a backup? I sciebo not safe?

Making backups is just part of good data hygiene. Sciebo is a collaborative workspace and not a backup vault. Several scenarios can lead to data loss:

  • People you have shared with deleting your data by accident
  • Mounting sciebo as a Network drive and Windows doing weird things
  • You losing access to your sciebo account because you have missed the extension E-mail or change institutions

Why are you using OnlyOffice and not Microsoft Office 365?

OnlyOffice is open source and is hosted on our own servers. This mode of operation is impossible with Microsoft Office. Thus both data souvereignity and security considerations exclude the operation of Microsoft Office 365. Furthermore does Micrsofot Office work not as reliable on the scale of sciebo.

For open document formats we also offer Collabora on those instances, which already have been migrated to Nextcloud.