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Mounting RClone with Navidrome

4 min read

What this setup means for Navidrome

With this unit:

  • /mnt/music is a FUSE mount

  • inotify events are simulated at best

  • file mtimes and size changes are often delayed

  • directory listings are cached (--dir-cache-time 1m)

👉 Result:
Navidrome cannot reliably detect changes and therefore disables internal periodic scanning.

This is expected and unavoidable with rclone mounts.

🚫 Why “scan every 5 minutes” is a bad idea here

A Navidrome scan on a rclone mount does:

  • thousands of stat() calls

  • recursive directory walks

  • metadata reads that trigger OneDrive API calls

At 5 minutes, this will:

  • hammer OneDrive

  • cause random playback stalls

  • eventually get you rate-limited

So even if Navidrome allowed it, it’d be self-harm 😅

✅ The correct architecture (cloud-safe + stable)

Use an external scan trigger

This is the only sane approach with rclone mounts.

You already have (or should have) this:

[Unit]
Description=Trigger Navidrome Library Scan
 
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/curl -fsS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:4533/api/scan
[Unit]
Description=Run Navidrome scan periodically
 
[Timer]
OnBootSec=10min
OnUnitActiveSec=15min
AccuracySec=1min
Persistent=true
 
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

👉 15 minutes is the sweet spot for OneDrive.

🔧 Improvements to your rclone mount (important)

1️⃣ Increase directory cache time

Your current setting:

--dir-cache-time 1m

This causes Navidrome scans to constantly re-list directories.

✅ Change to:

--dir-cache-time 30m

Navidrome doesn’t need second-level freshness — the timer handles that.

2️⃣ Lower poll pressure (or disable it)

--poll-interval 30s

Polling + Navidrome scanning = duplicated API hits.

If you rely on the timer, you can safely do:

--poll-interval 5m

or even:

--poll-interval 0

(0 disables polling completely)

You’re using:

--vfs-cache-mode writes

For read-mostly music libraries, this is better:

--vfs-cache-mode full

Why:

  • prevents partial reads during FLAC streaming

  • avoids repeated OneDrive fetches

  • smoother playback during scans

✅ Recommended final rclone ExecStart

ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount onedrive-ondemand:"MAIN/Public/Music/Albums" /mnt/music \
  --vfs-cache-mode full \
  --vfs-cache-max-size 5G \
  --vfs-cache-max-age 12h \
  --vfs-read-chunk-size 32M \
  --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 128M \
  --dir-cache-time 30m \
  --poll-interval 5m \
  --buffer-size 32M \
  --allow-other \
  --timeout 1h

🧹 Navidrome config (keep it simple)

Remove all scan-related keys from navidrome.toml:

# DO NOT set ScanInterval or ScanSchedule

Let the timer do the work.

🏁 Final mental model (important)

  • rclone mount ≠ real filesystem

  • Navidrome watcher ≠ reliable

  • periodic scan inside Navidrome = intentionally disabled

  • external timer = correct solution

This is exactly how people run Navidrome on:

  • OneDrive

  • Google Drive

  • Dropbox

  • NAS WebDAV mounts

Totally fair question — this is the last confusing bit, and once it’s done you’re set. I’ll walk you through it step-by-step, no assumptions.

You’re going to create two systemd unit files and put them in the system-wide systemd directory.

📁 Where these files go

For system services and timers, put them here:

/etc/systemd/system/

You’ll create:

/etc/systemd/system/navidrome-scan.service
/etc/systemd/system/navidrome-scan.timer

1️⃣ Create the .service file

Run:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/navidrome-scan.service

Paste this exactly:

[Unit]
Description=Trigger Navidrome Library Scan
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
 
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/curl -fsS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:4533/api/scan

Save and exit (Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X).

2️⃣ Create the .timer file

Run:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/navidrome-scan.timer

Paste:

[Unit]
Description=Run Navidrome library scan every 15 minutes
 
[Timer]
OnBootSec=10min
OnUnitActiveSec=15min
AccuracySec=1min
Persistent=true
 
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Save and exit.

🔧 If you really want 5 minutes, change 15min → 5min
(not recommended for OneDrive, but it’ll work)

3️⃣ Tell systemd the files exist

This step is mandatory:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

4️⃣ Enable and start the timer

You enable the timer, not the service:

sudo systemctl enable --now navidrome-scan.timer

This will:

  • start it immediately

  • start it automatically on boot

5️⃣ Verify it’s working

Check that the timer is scheduled:

systemctl list-timers | grep navidrome

You should see something like:

navidrome-scan.timer   ...   15min

Manually test a scan:

sudo systemctl start navidrome-scan.service

Then watch Navidrome logs:

journalctl -u navidrome -f

You should see:

Starting library scan
Finished library scan

🧠 How this works (quick mental model)

  • .timer = “when should this happen?”

  • .service = “what should actually run?”

  • systemd automatically runs the service on schedule

  • Navidrome doesn’t need to support periodic scans anymore

🧹 Optional cleanup (recommended)

In navidrome.toml, remove any of these if present:

ScanInterval
ScanSchedule
EnablePeriodicScan

They’re not used in your setup.

✅ That’s it — you’re done

From now on:

  • rclone handles OneDrive

  • systemd handles scheduling

  • Navidrome just scans when told to

If you want, next we can:

  • add a manual “Scan now” button

  • delay scans until rclone mount is ready

  • avoid scans while music is playing

  • move to a local cache mirror for even better performance

Just say what you want to tweak 😄

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