[Bug]: ignored files always show state 'sync pending'

[PhilippSchlesinger]

⚠️ Before submitting, please verify the following: ⚠️

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

Bug description

ignored files always show state 'sync pending'

Steps to reproduce

1. have some files that are ignored from sync per configuration.
   

2. look at some of those files in Windows Explorer:
   

3. the files show 'sync pending' while hovering and in status line. The status icon is also suggesting 'sync pending'.

Expected behavior

File status and icon should somehow show that this file is exempted from sync.
Icon could be corresponding to the tray window
(

)

Which files are affected by this bug

all files that are ignored by configuration

Operating system

Windows

Which version of the operating system you are running.

Windows 10

Package

Other

Nextcloud Server version

25.0.4

Nextcloud Desktop Client version

3.7.4

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

Updated from a minor version (ex. 3.4.2 to 3.4.4)

Are you using the Nextcloud Server Encryption module?

Encryption is Disabled

Are you using an external user-backend?

• Default internal user-backend
• LDAP/ Active Directory
• SSO - SAML
• Other

Nextcloud Server logs

No response

Additional info

No response

[Plinsboorg]

I can confirm the same issue for me.

Software versions

I tested it on my personal PC: Windows 11 Home 22H2 build 22621.1413
And on the fresh Windows install in VM: Windows 10 Home 22H2 build 19045.2728
Nextcloud desktop client version 3.8.0
Nextcloud server. Tested on: 26.0.0, 25.0.2, 24.0.9
This issue shows up on both OS versions, and for each server version from above.

Ignored files and desktop.ini

You can see I added the .xyz file to the ignore list and it became permanently in pending sync state

This issue also affects the desktop.ini files. Nextcloud ignores them as explained in this post (this post also confirms the issue). When you add a custom icon to the folder Windows creates desktop.ini inside of it. This file receives pending sync status and this status propagates to the folder itself and all folders above it.
When I remove the .xyz file from the ignore list it's synced just fine:

But the issue with desktop.ini is not going anywhere.

Test with older version of file explorer

I also tested on the older version of Windows. Windows 10 Enterprise 1607. It had the older version of the file explorer that looks like this:

You can see the status icon is displayed close to the folder (not in the separate column). It is not syncing the desktop.ini files but they have a yellow icon instead of the blue (sync pending) icon. And this doesn't propagate to the folder above. You can see the Photos folder has a green icon despite the desctop.ini with a yellow icon inside of it. If you hide hidden files you will not see this in the old style of file explorer. That's why you didn't see this issue earlier.

Expected behavior

I would suggest different icon for the expected behavior.

I would expect the gray icon that is used by Onedrive. It also displays "Excluded from sync" message when you hover the mouse over this icon.

[Plinsboorg]

I found out that even on the new versions of Windows the status icons are displayed in the "old way" (near the folder icon) if you don't enable the virtual files support.
And without virtual files support enabled this issue is not observed.

Windows 11 Home 22H2
Nextcloud desktop client version 3.8.1
Virtual files support DISABLED