Access rights issue for nextcloud-notify-push.service after host restart - likely reset after app updates

No idea why, but after every host restart the service does fail to start with

× nextcloud-notify-push.service - Push daemon for Nextcloud clients
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/nextcloud-notify-push.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/nextcloud-notify-push.service.d
             └─override.conf
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2026-02-17 19:54:26 CET; 48min ago
       Docs: https://github.com/nextcloud/notify_push
   Main PID: 3051 (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
        CPU: 1ms

Feb 17 19:54:26 Hostname systemd[1]: Starting nextcloud-notify-push.service - Push daemon for Nextcloud clients...
Feb 17 19:54:26 Hostname (ify_push)[3051]: nextcloud-notify-push.service: Failed to locate executable /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push: Permission denied
Feb 17 19:54:26 Hostname (ify_push)[3051]: nextcloud-notify-push.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push: Permission denied
Feb 17 19:54:26 Hostname systemd[1]: nextcloud-notify-push.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Feb 17 19:54:26 Hostname systemd[1]: nextcloud-notify-push.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 17 19:54:26 Hostname systemd[1]: Failed to start nextcloud-notify-push.service - Push daemon for Nextcloud clients.

Checking with sudo ll /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push gave

-rw-r----- 1 www-data www-data 23M 11. Jan 14:43 /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push

So the executable bit was missing. As a workaround suggested by an AI I did

1. sudo systemctl edit nextcloud-notify-push
2. Entered

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/chmod 750 /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push

to work around this. As this rights issue is not part of the setup documentation, I wanted to raise this to your attention.

Please note that I had the exact same issue a few weeks (also after a host reboot) which was solved manually by running sudo chmod 750 /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push; sudo systemctl restart nextcloud-notify-push. So no idea why the executable bit was reset. Likely due to a meanwhile app update.

Start with the reported systemd failure for nextcloud-notify-push.service and inspect /var/www/nextcloud/apps/notify_push/bin/aarch64/notify_push, whose executable bit is missing. Reproduce or trace the relevant app update or restart path to determine why its permissions change. Done means the service starts after a host restart and the executable retains suitable permissions without the manual chmod workaround.