[Bug]: Total user count was negative

⚠️ This issue respects the following points: ⚠️

• This is a bug, not a question or a configuration/webserver/proxy issue.
• This issue is not already reported on Github OR Nextcloud Community Forum (I've searched it).
• Nextcloud Server is up to date. See Maintenance and Release Schedule for supported versions.
• I agree to follow Nextcloud's Code of Conduct.

Bug description

Nextcloud logs get spammed with this:

Total user count was negative (users: 6, disabled: 12)

I have the following number of users:

• Database backend:
  • active: 5
  • disabled: 1
• Guest backend:
  • active: 2
  • disabled: 0
• LDAP backend:
  • active: 10+
  • disabled: 11

So it seems to count the disabled users correctly: "12".

Not sure how it comes to the conclusion of "6" users though, since it should be "8" (all database + guest if it simply ignorese ldap) or "7" (all active database + guest).

Maybe something with counting the ldap users is wrong?

Steps to reproduce

1. Connect LDAP server to nextcloud (if ldap is the issue)
2. Deactivate some database users

Expected behavior

No error message in logs.

Nextcloud Server version

30

Operating system

Debian/Ubuntu

PHP engine version

PHP 8.3

Web server

Nginx

Database engine version

MySQL

Is this bug present after an update or on a fresh install?

None

Are you using the Nextcloud Server Encryption module?

Encryption is Disabled

What user-backends are you using?

• Default user-backend (database)
• LDAP/ Active Directory
• SSO - SAML
• Other

Configuration report

{
    "system": {
        "instanceid": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "passwordsalt": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "datadirectory": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbtype": "mysql",
        "dbname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbuser": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbpassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbhost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbtableprefix": "oc_",
        "version": "30.0.6.2",
        "installed": true,
        "forcessl": true,
        "maxZipInputSize": 838860800,
        "allowZipDownload": true,
        "theme": "",
        "log_type": "file",
        "loglevel": 2,
        "log_query": false,
        "logdateformat": "Y.m.d H:i:s",
        "logfile": "\/var\/log\/nextcloud\/nextcloud.log",
        "trusted_domains": [
            "**SENSITIVE**"
        ],
        "mail_smtpmode": "smtp",
        "mail_from_address": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_domain": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "default_phone_region": "DE",
        "secret": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "forceSSLforSubdomains": true,
        "filelocking.enabled": true,
        "memcache.local": "\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu",
        "memcache.distributed": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "memcache.locking": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "redis": {
            "host": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
            "port": 6379
        },
        "logtimezone": "Europe\/Berlin",
        "ldapIgnoreNamingRules": false,
        "trashbin_retention_obligation": "auto",
        "updatechecker": false,
        "updater.server.url": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "updater.release.channel": "stable",
        "maintenance_window_start": 1,
        "profile.enabled": false,
        "enabledPreviewProviders": [
            "OC\\Preview\\PNG",
            "OC\\Preview\\JPEG",
            "OC\\Preview\\GIF",
            "OC\\Preview\\BMP",
            "OC\\Preview\\XBitmap",
            "OC\\Preview\\MP3",
            "OC\\Preview\\TXT",
            "OC\\Preview\\MarkDown",
            "OC\\Preview\\OpenDocument",
            "OC\\Preview\\Krita",
            "OC\\Preview\\PDF",
            "OC\\Preview\\HEIC",
            "OC\\Preview\\Movie",
            "OC\\Preview\\TIFF",
            "OC\\Preview\\Image"
        ],
        "preview_max_scale_factor": 1,
        "preview_max_memory": 1280,
        "preview_max_x": 1024,
        "preview_max_y": 1024,
        "htaccess.RewriteBase": "\/",
        "ldapProviderFactory": "\\OCA\\User_LDAP\\LDAPProviderFactory",
        "maintenance": false,
        "mail_smtpsecure": "tls",
        "mail_smtpauthtype": "PLAIN",
        "mail_smtpauth": 1,
        "mail_smtphost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtpport": "25",
        "mail_smtpname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtppassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mysql.utf8mb4": true,
        "app_install_overwrite": [
            "ocsms",
            "maps",
            "spreed",
            "tasks",
            "memories"
        ],
        "data-fingerprint": "c3a5ef2e8d8ae76b76546fbd0dfba4c8",
        "overwrite.cli.url": "**SENSITIVE**",
        "twofactor_enforced": "true",
        "twofactor_enforced_groups": [
            "**SENSITIVE**"
        ],
        "twofactor_enforced_excluded_groups": [],
        "memories.exiftool": "\/var\/www\/owncloud\/apps\/memories\/bin-ext\/exiftool-amd64-glibc",
        "memories.vod.path": "\/var\/www\/owncloud\/apps\/memories\/bin-ext\/go-vod-amd64",
        "memories.vod.disable": false,
        "memories.vod.ffmpeg": "\/usr\/bin\/ffmpeg",
        "memories.vod.ffprobe": "\/usr\/bin\/ffprobe",
        "memories.gis_type": 1,
        "memories.db.triggers.fcu": true,
        "trusted_proxies": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***"
    }
}

List of activated Apps

Enabled:
  - activity: 3.0.0
  - admin_audit: 1.20.0
  - bruteforcesettings: 3.0.0
  - calendar: 5.1.0
  - call_summary_bot: 2.0.1
  - circles: 30.0.0
  - cloud_federation_api: 1.13.0
  - comments: 1.20.1
  - contacts: 7.0.0
  - contactsinteraction: 1.11.0
  - dashboard: 7.10.0
  - dav: 1.31.1
  - federatedfilesharing: 1.20.0
  - federation: 1.20.0
  - files: 2.2.0
  - files_downloadlimit: 3.0.0
  - files_external: 1.22.0
  - files_pdfviewer: 3.0.0
  - files_reminders: 1.3.0
  - files_sharing: 1.22.0
  - files_trashbin: 1.20.1
  - files_versions: 1.23.0
  - firstrunwizard: 3.0.0
  - guests: 4.1.0
  - impersonate: 1.17.1
  - logreader: 3.0.0
  - lookup_server_connector: 1.18.0
  - maps: 1.5.0
  - memories: 7.4.1
  - nextcloud_announcements: 2.0.0
  - notes: 4.11.0
  - notifications: 3.0.0
  - notify_push: 1.0.0
  - oauth2: 1.18.1
  - password_policy: 2.0.0
  - photos: 3.0.2
  - polls: 7.3.1
  - previewgenerator: 5.8.0
  - privacy: 2.0.0
  - provisioning_api: 1.20.0
  - recognize: 8.2.0
  - recommendations: 3.0.0
  - related_resources: 1.5.0
  - serverinfo: 2.0.0
  - settings: 1.13.0
  - sharebymail: 1.20.0
  - spreed: 20.1.4
  - support: 2.0.0
  - systemtags: 1.20.0
  - tables: 0.8.4
  - tasks: 0.16.1
  - text: 4.1.0
  - theming: 2.6.0
  - twofactor_backupcodes: 1.19.0
  - twofactor_totp: 12.0.0-dev
  - twofactor_webauthn: 2.1.0
  - user_ldap: 1.21.0
  - user_status: 1.10.0
  - viewer: 3.0.0
  - weather_status: 1.10.0
  - webhook_listeners: 1.1.0-dev
  - workflowengine: 2.12.0
Disabled:
  - app_api: 4.0.6 (installed 4.0.6)
  - appointments: 2.3.5 (installed 2.3.5)
  - assistant: 2.3.0 (installed 2.3.0)
  - context_chat: 4.1.0 (installed 4.1.0)
  - deck: 1.14.3 (installed 1.14.3)
  - encryption: 2.18.0 (installed 2.1.0)
  - end_to_end_encryption: 1.16.2 (installed 1.16.2)
  - files_accesscontrol: 1.20.1 (installed 1.20.1)
  - files_automatedtagging: 1.20.0 (installed 1.20.0)
  - files_downloadactivity: 1.17.0 (installed 1.17.0)
  - files_retention: 1.19.0 (installed 1.19.0)
  - files_rightclick: 0.15.1 (installed 1.6.0)
  - forms: 4.3.7 (installed 4.3.7)
  - groupfolders: 18.1.0 (installed 18.1.0)
  - integration_mattermost: 2.1.0 (installed 2.1.0)
  - mail: 4.2.0 (installed 4.2.0)
  - phonetrack: 0.8.2 (installed 0.8.2)
  - survey_client: 2.0.0 (installed 2.0.0)
  - suspicious_login: 8.0.0 (installed 6.0.0)
  - twofactor_admin: 4.7.1 (installed 4.7.1)
  - twofactor_nextcloud_notification: 4.0.0
  - updatenotification: 1.20.0 (installed 1.20.0)
  - whiteboard: 1.0.5 (installed 1.0.5)

Nextcloud Signing status

No errors have been found.

Nextcloud Logs

{"reqId":"MqiHunCA0mrm2EUCaAoq","level":2,"time":"2025.02.21 15:28:06","remoteAddr":"***","user":"***","app":"support","method":"GET","url":"/apps/logreader/api/poll?lastReqId=ESR13Vno2fE4D4QJ9IpV","message":"Total user count was negative (users: 6, disabled: 12)","userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:136.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/136.0","version":"30.0.6.2","data":{"app":"support"}}

Additional info

No response

Start by locating the support app code that emits the "Total user count was negative" message, then trace how database, guest, and LDAP backends contribute active and disabled users. Compare the calculation with the reported counts and verify that the configured backends no longer produce an incorrect negative total or log error.