Database nightmare

Just purchased officepro and started scanning my life into it. Today I tried importing a website and it crashed. Upon restarting, all of my documents in the database are reported as 0 bytes in size. I have tried everything, but nothing is bringing my documents back. The database is 500mb which is about right for my 200 documents.

Help!

Please send a report to Support (Help > Support). Describe what you were doing and the problem.

Include a copy of the DT Pro crash log, which can be found (in your Home User directory) at ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/.

Also include a list of “Other” preference panes displayed in System Preferences.

Done.

Is it the case that somehow files aren’t written to the database if the database is never closed?

If your operating system, your disk directory and your open database are in good shape, new content will be written to the hard drive.

Have you run Tools > Verify & Repair on your database?

Your scanned and OCRd PDFs are stored in the Files folder, inside the database package file. Quit DT Pro Office. In the Finder, select the database package file. Control-click (right click) on it and choose the contextual menu option Show Package Contents. Examine the contents of the internal File folder.

My guess is that all of your scanned PDFs are in good shape. If you wish, make a copy (Option-drag) of the Files folder to your desktop. Now create a new, empty database. Choose File > Import > Files & Folders and select that copied Files folder. If I’m right, that results in a working database containing all of your scanned material.

Thanks for the response!

I pulled the files out - they are fine. What I’ve lost is the hierarchy that I had created. Thinking about instead of importing, indexing. does it make a qualitative difference in how you use devonthink?

Mark

Mark, if you move to Indexing the only downside re organization schemas is that you may get confused if you retain the original groups created by Index to a Finder folder, but also move around some of the contents of that group to one or more other groups.

Personally, I prefer Import captures. Your PDFs in the internal Files folder were in fact stored in the Finder, and were just a safe as your other Finder files.

I don’t have any problems with database stability. I run periodic maintenance on the operating system, and periodic database maintenance. For example, after a batch of new imports I’ll run Tools > Verify & Repair to be assured there were no problems. Then Tools > Backup & Optimize to have a current backup. My favorite routine is Scripts > Export > Backup Archive, which verifies and optimizes the database and creates current internal and external backups. Periodically, I store those external archives of my databases off-site.

I’ve only resorted to a backup once in the past three years. That exception was caused when I installed as a test an input manager plugin that had caused problems for a user. Yes, it messed up my database, too. I stick to a pretty much stock OS X.

The forthcoming version 2 will store documents of all file types in the Finder.