Files uploaded to AmazonS3/MinIO get expiresAt and disappear despite URL expiry & retention disabled

[MicoDan]

Description:

I’m running Rocket.Chat version 8.0.1 in a Docker container and MinIO also in a Docker container for file uploads. Files uploaded via Rocket.Chat (store: AmazonS3:Uploads) are automatically assigned an expiresAt timestamp and become unavailable after ~1 day, even though:

• URL expiration is set to 0
• File retention policies are disabled

Observed Behavior:

• Uploaded files' preview work immediately.
• After ~1 day, files stop being downloadable/previewable.
• In MongoDB, rocketchat_uploads documents always have expiresAt = uploadedAt + ~1 day.
• expiresAt persists for new uploads even after disabling URL expiry & retention policies.

What I’ve Checked / Tried:

• FileUpload_S3_URLExpiryTimeSpan = 0 in admin settings
• Disabled all retention policies
• Verified Mongo indexes; expiresAt index is not TTL

Questions:

1. Should Rocket.Chat continue setting expiresAt when URL expiry and retention are disabled?
2. How can uploads remain accessible indefinitely with AmazonS3/MinIO?
3. Are there server-side jobs or TTL configs outside Mongo that delete files based on expiresAt?
4. If this is a bug, which part of the code controls setting expiresAt for S3 uploads?

[mg1986jp]

The expiresAt field on uploaded files is controlled by the FileUpload_S3_URLExpiryTimeSpan setting, but setting it to 0 doesn't mean "no expiry" — in older versions of Rocket.Chat it was interpreted as "use default" (which was typically 86400 seconds / 1 day). This changed in more recent versions but behavior can be inconsistent.

Here's what's likely happening:

1. Rocket.Chat generates presigned S3/MinIO URLs for file access. The URLExpiryTimeSpan controls how long those URLs are valid. When the URL expires, the file isn't deleted — it just can't be accessed via the old URL.

2. The expiresAt field in MongoDB isn't a TTL index (you confirmed this), so files aren't being deleted from MinIO. They're just inaccessible because the presigned URL expired.

Fix:

Set FileUpload_S3_URLExpiryTimeSpan to a very large number instead of 0:

Admin → File Upload → Amazon S3 → URL Expiry Time Span → 31536000

That's 1 year in seconds. The URLs will still technically expire, but effectively last forever.

Alternative — make the MinIO bucket publicly readable:

If your MinIO instance is internal/trusted, set the bucket policy to allow public reads:

mc anonymous set download myminio/rocketchat-uploads

Then in Rocket.Chat settings:

• Set FileUpload_S3_URLExpiryTimeSpan to 0
• Enable FileUpload_S3_Proxy_Uploads — this makes Rocket.Chat proxy file downloads through its own server instead of redirecting to presigned URLs

With proxy mode + public bucket, the presigned URL expiry becomes irrelevant because Rocket.Chat fetches the file server-side using its configured credentials.

To verify files still exist in MinIO:

mc ls myminio/rocketchat-uploads/

If the files are there, it's purely a URL expiry issue, not a deletion issue.