403 Forbidden. That is a webserver’s way of telling someone does not have permission to a file or folder they are trying accessing. When I saw this in an OwnCloud desktop sync client, I was confused because the user should have the ability to upload new files to their directory.

The issue I discovered was that the user was trying to upload pictures into the “Shared” folder. In OwnCloud, the Shared directory is not as much a folder as it is a location of tagged ‘Shared’ folders. This translates into the “Shared” folder does not exist and therefore the user cannot upload to it. Obviously at this point, this was causing the 403 Forbidden error.

The solution is to tell the user to move their files into a folder they own and use the web interface to share the files with their intended audience.