OK… Here’s the scenario:
I was running DEVONthink (Dt) Personal, and upgraded to DtPro once it came out, and I now have several databases for use with Dt.
One of these databases, my development database, to be exact, consists mainly of PDF’s, and captured web content, which had been captured within Dt. This database also contains several .chm files, which are basically self-contained help files, which are launched in a program that’s external to Dt. These are not viewable through Dt.
As I was adding some new web content into the database today, I happened to click on one of several PDF’s that I had in the same folder, and the weirdest thing happened: Instead of opening in the PDF in a new Dt window (at normal resolution at least… read on), or launching it in an external application (Acrobat, Preview, whatever…), Dt opened a very tiny version of the PDF. Here’s an example:
Additionally, what’s opened behaves at its original size only… If you zoom in, the document acts just like a thumbnail, and enlarges by pixelizing itself. Also, the window can only be shrank from this initial size. It lacks the ability to enlarge itself until it’s zoomed into, and pixelizing. Here’s a zoomed shot:
“Not a big deal”, I thought, “I’ll just open the PDF externally (in Acrobat or Preview), and resave it from there into Dt”. But when I try and open the file externally to Dt using the “Open in Preview” context menu, nothing happens. Likewise, if I “Launch Path” via the context menu, nothing happens. the 1st time I did this, something did happen: I got a “Can’t open document” error, but since then, I don’t get this error, nor do I get an open document.
So now I’m starting to get a little panicky… I decide to open the file directly by opening the databases “files” folder from within Finder. When I do this though, I find that the PDF’s not stored there. This is troubling in that I had both Dt Personal and Pro configured to import PDF’s into the databases folder, rather than the database itself.
There are some files in my databases folder, but very few compared to the number of files I’ve put into Dt since using it. I went to my backup folders (I had 4 in the databases parent folder), but none of them even contain a “Files” folder. Similarly, when my backups are opened, these files view the same as with my current database, in that they open as these weird little thumbnails.
Here’s some more weird stuff about this…
I’ve discovered that I can still drag out these files into Finder (on my desktop, for instance). In the past when I’d do this, I’d get a physical copy of the original file. For example, if I drag out a PDF form, I get a PDF form on my desktop, which was a standalone copy of the original document.
But now when I do this, I get what appears to be a text snippet (Image below - The icons due to a custom icon set, but is the default icon, meaning nothing’s associated with this file).
I can rename this “snippet”, adding the .pdf extension, but Acrobat and Preview refuse to open it. If I double click this file, it opens as a text clipping document within Finder, which contains all of the text from the original document, including all markup, and some other gibberish:
Another weird thing is that the document within Dt still thinks it’s displaying a PDF! If you look at the 1st couple of pics from above, you can see that the original file, along with its “.pdf” extension, as well as the total number of words in the document are displayed.
Finally, the aforementioned .chm files no longer work either. Admittedly, I’ve not used any of these since upgrading to Dt Pro, but in the Personal version, opening these files would launch it in the external chm view I have installed. Now, the files drag out as a Dt link (with the extension ‘.dtlink’), with what appears to be the .mac icon. They also no longer work, or are usable:
So what’s up here? I’d hate to think I loss all this data, but I’m not seeing the files where I’d expect them to be (in my “files” subfolder, within the databases folder), and I’m not able to open these files in a meaningful way.
As I’ve been troubleshooting since discovering this, I’ve discovered that it appears to affect all pdf files, as well as all “unknown” files, all of which was setup to be imported within the databases folder, based on my Dt preferences.
I’m also not able to view, or export these file from within Dt, so I’m kinda at a loss as to what to do next. Anyone has any ideas here?