I'm curious what you mean by files being unusable outside Nextcloud? Are you using server-side encryption?
Edit: to sync only selected folders, there should be a Choose what to sync button. Or you can skip the initial sync config and set per-folder sync afterwards from settings.
Some, not all older Hetzner dedicated servers are really slow compared to even their shared VPSs.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could actually do with a virtual server, unless you need the disk space or know the traffic is close to 20 TB / month. NVMe is fast though, you may get really good performance with the static HTML caching mentioned, if the content is suitable.
I've been favoring manual YAML definitions, using kluctl as a manual nicety in between.
Not quite gitops, though the definitions are in a git repo to keep track of changes. Whenever I change something, it's deployed manually, kluctl gives a nice diff of changes.
Some months ago, I had UTD issues with Element X too. My hs has been up for some years, and the devs claimed they had done a lot to fix UTDs.
I was about to bring the server down, but as a last resort decided to log out all but one Element web session which was able to decrypt the messages and try resetting the key backup. Haven't had any UTD issues since then.
I've read a lot of outcry about this wrt self-hosted mail servers.
Some say this is fatal, some say it has no effect. Both sides seem to have valid technical arguments. It would be nice to understand the effects better.
My biased opinion is that most people run Nextcloud on an underpowered platform, and/or they install and enable every possible addon. Many also skip some important configurations.
If you run NC on a bit more powerful machine, like a used USFF PC, with a good link to it, the experience is better than e.g. OneDrive.
Another thing is, people say "Nextcloud does too much", but a default installation really doesn't do much more than files. If you add every imaginable app, sure it slows down and gets buggy. Disable everything you don't need, and the experience gets much better. You can disable even the built-in Photos app if you don't need it.
Not saying NC is a speed daemon, but it really is OK. The desktop and mobile clients don't get enough love, that's true.
I'm talking about the "bare metal" installation or the community Apache/FPM container images. AIO seems to be a hot mess, and does just about everything a container shouldn't be doing, but that's just my opinion.
Keep at it! The learning curve is not a straight line, just like with any skill. You'll see fast progress, just to be followed by a long plateau of no progress or even feel you're getting worse. And then you notice possibly big improvement again. And again.
Don't worry about following sheets/chords initially. If chords are not in your muscle memory, you're basically doing three complex tasks simultaneously, reading, figuring out chords and fingering chords. I'd try to memorize one or two simple pieces first, to get the chords under your belt. Start simple and stay patient, it'll take time.
Don't forget the rhythm. Play on top of recordings. You can be pretty liberal with the harmonics, but if you keep a steady beat it'll probably still sound good.
I'm curious what you mean by files being unusable outside Nextcloud? Are you using server-side encryption?
Edit: to sync only selected folders, there should be a Choose what to sync button. Or you can skip the initial sync config and set per-folder sync afterwards from settings.