New laptop for work with a fresh new install of DevonThink.
All of my actual work directories and files have been redownloaded as they’re stored on OneDrive (per work requirements) but on-demand is disabled, so all of the files are local. My former DT install was sync’ing three encrypted databases with my local Synology NAS using WebDAV over HTTPS.
When I went to setup WebDAV again - it errored out because it couldn’t create a directory that was already there. I was expecting DT to show me the remote databases and allow me to reconnect and resync them back to my laptop. This was an assumption that appears to be incorrect.
What is the use of WebDAV if I cannot reconnect to them and restore the databases back to my local machine?
Do you not have proper local backups of your databases to pull from?
As has been discussed many times, here as well as in the documentation: Sync is not a backup, neither advertised nor advocated as such. We strongly advocate proper primary backups using TimeMachine (or similar snapshot-style backup applications) and external drives. Also, you should read the series of articles we posted: Blog Search: Backups
Thank you for your reply Bluefrog, your insight is always welcome and I don’t wish to waste your time with questions that have been asked before - I did search for a solution or others that had the same question and failed to find a similar thread.
I do have a Time Machine backup and did pull it back from that, it took minutes to bring all three databases back from backup.
My question was specifically with DT’s WebDAV attempting to create a directory that is already there. Shouldn’t it recognize the directory exists (because it is an existing DT database sync) and allow you to resync the data?
In my experience, it does: I recently installed an additional license on another machine and it offered all databases in the WebDAV location (also on my Synology, so a similar setup) for sync. I simply selected them and was all set.
I suppose that the WebDAV setup on your new laptop is not exactly identical to the one you use on your other machine(s).
Here, the URL Is
“https://mydomain.com:5006/DEVONthink”
where “DEVONthink” is a top-level folder on the NAS whose name I chose. It contains a single folder “DT.dtCloud”. I believe (but am not sure) that this name was created by DT when I set up WebDAV sync for the first time.
Be careful with UPPER/lower case in WebDAV URLs and file names. At least my Synology is sensible to that, and DT is a different folder than Dt, dt or dT, as a matter of sample. Same in the path form the connection URI.
Nailed it @rfog - after reviewing the previous configuration, I had capitalized the directory “DEVONthink” and didn’t make note of it. After reviewing the Synology file system - I corrected it and sync worked perfectly. PEBCAK strikes again.