Database Busy Errors

Hello again;

Sorry if this is a repost answered elsewhere, but my best googling keeps coming up with articles concerning older versions of the apps, and we are in a new and exciting era all around, so to speak.

So, regarding the syncing of things:

About every 10 minutes or so, on the bonjour connection between my M1 mac and my iPad Pro, between my localized mac client and my indexed ipad client, DTtg3 throws up ‘database busy’ errors. I cant find anything in the logs or the help files or the books or the forums or the google about what’s causing them, what i can do about them, or what they are doing to my sync. This is quite frustrating; castigating Apple about their ‘Something Went Wrong’ errors is part and parcel- but semi detailed errors that lead nowhere, is… frustrating. There are other errors too, but none are so prolific or so beguilingly simple. Disabling bonjour slows the reaction time of the iPad client considerably, so it’s doing something, errors or no, But performance can be iffy any time sync is pending (I’m doing PDFs & images, and oh so many tags, all chopped and rechopped into smaller and smaller databases to make them syncable), so making my syncs error free seems to be a worthy thing.

Speaking of sync, is having multiple sync stores running concurrently out of fashion now? Truly, is there a best practices syncing guide yet for DT3 / DTtg3? I’ve found lots of bits n pieces and how to - setting up sync right appears to be well covered. How to do it well is - something that could be useful. At least for me, hopefully others.

So, any good tips?

Thank you all, as always.

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between my localized mac client and my indexed ipad client

What is your “localized mac client” and your "indexed ipad client" ? :thinking:

It is unclear if you have two or three devices in this setup.

Hello, and apologies for the ambiguities.

My M1 mac hosts a string of databases where the information I hope to use in the app has been localized / stored within Devonthink- there was a term for this but I’ve forgotten for now… My iPad Pro is the primary client, and I try to keep the databases there only indexed, though there have been some hiccups. I also have a phone that i sync indexed copies of the Global Inbox and one smaller database to. The sync datastores used are Cloudkit and bonjour with incoming connections disabled.

Ah, nifty; thank you for the tip.

No worries!

Note: DEVONthink To Go does not support indexing files. Perhaps you mean a shallow sync, i.e., Download Files: On demand?

Ah, so I did, though i initially thought shallow sync was a different kind of operative state for the databases on iOS clients, I need to reread the book, after going too far afield floundering about.

No worries! :slight_smile:

So should I be worrying about database busy errors?

No. It just means the server is busy. If this is persistent, you can quit and relaunch DEVONthink to see if it resumes syncing.

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Ok, so no busy database worries, but on to a new crisis, if i may.

I dropped a pile / a few hundred files into the Global Inbox, in iOS Files. It took considerable time, but it all synced, mostly- the item counts differed between each global inbox in the apps and in files between devices, but not by all that much. I set to process and file away everything in the DTtg3 Global Inbox, trusting that the sync would catch up as I was taking minutes per file- the DTtg3 interface is good, given the constraints, but I’m not fast. Dupes showed up in the inbox, but thats what I told the app to do with conflicts- the edited files were showing up in place, and all seemed copacetic.

Up to a point. The last 100 or so files left in the inbox can be tagged and probably edited, but they cant be moved (the operation proceeds up until the group destination selection, and then nothing happens) , or purged (the option simply doesn’t show up), or duplicated/replicated (the group picker grays out all options except the Global Inbox).

Just when i thought i had a good first rev processing scheme, something appears to have broken badly. There is no verify and repair for the global inbox in DTtg3. I suppose i could shuffle the files around in the Global Inbox in Files, but that seems dangerous. And I’ve not tried yet to do these operations in the Mac client- the time i get on the mini is limited. Outside of erasing the app from the iPad and resyncving (which would be my fourth time- i had lots of fun working out database file sizes), I’m stuck, what did i break?

Oh, and the move operations appear to work as expected in the Mac client (VNC to the rescue).

Actually i restarted everything and now it seems to work. Heh.

Well actually, not all was fixed- you don’t purge Global Inbox items, and restarts can heal a multitude of sins, but I’ve found certain files n folders wont move. Some of my files have colons in the file names, DTtg3 will apparently (and intermittently) change the colons into / marks on the underlying file name (while still displaying a colon in DEVONthink)- but DEVONthink won’t move files with these substitute colons, nor display an error. They still open and edit. Sometimes they still can be moved. But not always.

Is this expected behavior?

You should not use colons in filenames.

  • They won’t move where - in DEVONthink or DEVONthink To Go?
    • If DEVOnthink, what is reported in its Window > Log?
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DEVONthink to Go. Select a file or group, Move, select destination group and it blinks, then comes back. So far. When moving the group, the destination picker shows most options as grayed out / unselectable.

My naming conventions could probably use some work. I may have to look into scripts to fix this- not all files with colons cause hiccups, else I’ve been getting better about not using them on my own.

I’ll test in DEVONthink in the morn. Thanks

Ok. The last ‘stuck’ group that wouldn’t move in Devonthink to go last night got moved around just fine in Devonthink for Mac, no errors or hitches to speak of. And bonus, once moved, Devonthink to go can now move the suspect group around willy nilly as well It appears that many of my colon named docs are commercial in origin, so it will be a bit trickier to suss them out after the fact- most imported in place though, so have been causing no noticeable grief until now.

Looking in the mac log for Devonthink mainly came up with a pile of long form file missing file errors, so I’m off on a new crisis. Probably sync hiccups as nothing actually appears to be actually gone yet, but it bears a look into.

If i can delineate an issue out clearly & concisely I will start a new thread; this one has been very helpful, though not in ways I initially expected. Heh. thank you all, and keep up the good work.

See…

They all verify with no errors on the mac, which is part of why I didn’t freak. I will keep this in mind though. Thank you again