mirror of
https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack.git
synced 2026-02-07 11:19:38 +03:00
Zip file export fails to import #5384
Reference in New Issue
Block a user
Delete Branch "%!s()"
Deleting a branch is permanent. Although the deleted branch may continue to exist for a short time before it actually gets removed, it CANNOT be undone in most cases. Continue?
Originally created by @hawksj on GitHub (Jul 30, 2025).
Describe the Bug
When attempting to import a Zip file that has been exported from another Bookstack instance at /import, the page just whirls after clicking "Validate Import". Eventually, after much time, the page may show the error "The file could not be uploaded. The server may not accept files of this size." Maximum file sizes have not been changed from Bookstack defaults. The Zip file I am working with is 2.5MB in size according to Windows.
The import also fails when re-importing back into the same server it was exported from, with the same behaviour.
Steps to Reproduce
Following the user documentation available here: https://www.bookstackapp.com/docs/user/export-import/
I have checked laravel.log and have not seen any errors relating to imports.
Expected Behaviour
The book should be successfully imported with all child content.
Screenshots or Additional Context
Exporting and importing chapters does work successfully and I have been able to workaround the issue by doing this, but it is considerably more labour for large books or collections of content. The parent book must also be manually recreated in the destination.
The documentation at https://www.bookstackapp.com/docs/user/export-import/ seems to be at odds with #5210 that states that importing Books is not supported.
Browser Details
Edge 138.0.3351.109 on Windows 10 22H2
Exact BookStack Version
v25.05.2
@ssddanbrown commented on GitHub (Aug 8, 2025):
Hi @hawksj,
Some filesize limits for php/web-servers can be around the 2MB limit.
Can you follow our guidance to increase/check the limits for your environment?:
https://www.bookstackapp.com/docs/admin/upload-config/#changing-upload-limits
If you need further help/guidance, please confirm what installation method was originally used.
@hawksj commented on GitHub (Aug 18, 2025):
Hey Dan, thanks for the response and sorry for the delay getting back to you. I will test this later this week and get back to you. This sounds very likely to be the cause but I will confirm later. The original install method was using the install script on a fresh Ubuntu instance and then following the OIDC guide for integration with Office 365 (great guide by the way). We are using AWS S3 for file storage but not sure if that is used here. Not much else has been changed including file upload limits. Thanks very much.
Sam
@ssddanbrown commented on GitHub (Sep 3, 2025):
Since there's been no further follow-up I'm going to close this off.
Feel free to comment if support is still required.
Can also be worth updating to the latest version of BookStack since that has received some fixes around ZIP imports.
@hawksj commented on GitHub (Sep 4, 2025):
Hi Dan,
Apologies for not getting back to you. I tried the commands in the guide you sent, namely the Bookstack .env edit and the PHP edits. Bookstack was set to 20MB and PHP to 8MB (both variables). I used the install script to initially install Bookstack so we are using Apache not Nginx. Unfortunately, even after rebooting the server and applying the latest patch, the upload of the specific book (2,452KB as shown in Windows) still fails despite being well below that the upload limits should be set at.
I'm not particularly concerned about troubleshooting further at this point in time as it was only the one book I needed to move in this instance, so I won't waste your time. Hopefully the workaround I used of splitting the book into chapters will at least work for someone in the future.
All the best,
Sam