DT4.2.2 on macOS 15.7.2
DTTG 4 on ipadOS 18
In DT, have a smart group selecting all PDFs with word count 0 (ie no text layer). It contains 79 elements.
In DTTG, there’s a pre-defined smart group “Empty PDFs” which selects all downloaded PDFs with no text layer. It contains 74 elements.
So, there are 4 documents without text layer that are apparently not downloaded in DTTG4.
OTOH, if I define a global smart group on the iPad that selects all pending objects (item==pending), it is empty.
What’s the matter with these four documents – did Schrödinger’s cat eat them? If there’s a way to identify them – what is it?
Perhaps related: On the Mac, I get the message that there’s one document in one of the databases that still has to be uploaded (see screenshot). How do I identify this document? Right click gives me a context menu where every item is disabled. The item==pending search on the Mac returns nothing.
Screenshots of both smart groups would of course be useful.
Are you able to verify all databases successfully? No missing files? Or maybe any indexed files on unmounted network volumes?
I think I found the reasons for the different smart group counts:
- first, there’s one database on the Mac that I do not sync with the iPad (stupid mistake on my side). That one accounts for one PDF without text layer on the Mac that’s not on the iPad
- second, several documents on the Mac are marked “PDF-Document”, while they are “PDF+Text” on the iPad. AFAICT, they should contain a text layer because the PDFs were machine-generated. I’ll just OCR them again on the Mac and see what that gives me.
Now to the “one file remains to be uploaded” issue.
I never use indexing (except for my incoming scans folder, but that one doesn’t matter here. It’s empty most of the time anyway).
I run verify & repair on all databases – everything fine. Then I run “check file integrity” which gave me several files with a garbled checksum. “Update object” on each of them fixed that. Now everything seems to be ok integrity-wise, but the “one file remaining to upload” message still appears occasionally.
It’s not obvious what triggers the message – sync does not, since I forced a sync of the database by a minor change without it (the message) reappearing.
It’s actually a sync message and usually triggered by pending, missing or unavailable files. But if a search for item:indexed OR item:pending across all databases doesn’t find anything and the verification doesn’t report any missing files, then the only remaining idea coming to my mind would be insufficient file permissions.
Meaning a missing read permission on a file? I can check for that, of course. Is there a way to find out which file DT is complaining about?
As I said, there’s a single indexed item in all my databases, and that is the (empty) Scan folder in the global inbox. No pending objects anywhere on the Mac.
Probably not anymore, the item is already in a list of not yet fully uploaded contents. But you could try to enable the hidden preference SyncDebugLog
I see this
2026-02-05 12:14:54,631 INFO: 1 reading positions remaining after garbage collection, 1 removed. in the Sync log, and longish call to a PHP backend.
So no dice.
This message is not related to the issue.
Rebuilding the database exported 2044 and imported 2043 objects. Turning on sync then complained about 16 files that were not found:
05.02.26, 14:27:01: ck Privat > …> Pachtabrechnung III-13 > index Datei fehlt
05.02.26, 14:27:01: ck Privat > … > Pachtabrechnung 2012 > index Datei fehlt
05.02.26, 14:27:01: ck Privat > …> Pachtabrechnung II-13 > index Datei fehlt
05.02.26, 14:27:01: ck Privat > … > Pachtabrechnung IV-13 > index Datei fehlt
05.02.26, 14:27:01: ck Privat > … > Pachtabrechnung II-13 > Previews > preview Datei fehlt
05.02.26, 14:27:01: ck Privat > …> Pachtabrechnung II-13 > preview-web Datei fehlt
…
I moved all of the files the errors referred to to the trash (or rather the group with all the files in it). Turned on sync, and now I have 17 objects still to upload.
This is making me slightly nervous now.
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Did you clean all sync stores after experiencing the issues with DEVONthink To Go 3.8.15?
I did now. Will see how that plays out.
Yes, with DT4, the log lists that message every time something changes, and DT wants to make sure it remembers to upload that file. It’s only frustrating if you like your log window to be clean, and I just might be one of those people.
If I turn off “show log automatically” then I won’t see entries that do need my attention, so I’m learning to live with the extra entries in the log 
That is abnormal behavior, not something by design. Have you opened a support ticket about this?
Hmm, that’s odd. I haven’t opened a ticket because it doesn’t really bother me. The “need to upload” messages don’t continue. IOW, whatever needs to be uploaded gets uploaded, and no further messages appear in the log. For example, right now (10:38) my log looks as below. The one item that needed to be uploaded apparently was uploaded, as 26 minutes later, there’s not another message about an item left to be uploaded. When I’m typing in DT on a Markdown file, as I often do, the log might list several such informational messages 1-2 minutes apart, and when I stop making changes to the document in DT, the revisions are uploaded and notifications stop.
| Date/Time |
File/Action |
Info |
| 2026.02.12, 09:47:36 |
Information |
One item left to be uploaded. |
| 2026.02.12, 10:12:09 |
Mail import to “Email Archive > 2025” |
3 previously imported |
At first I was concerned, but when I realized the linkage between editing and informational messages, and the fact that they stop once I stop editing, or stop adding new documents to the database, I accepted them as “informational” as the label says. Adding a document to the database doesn’t always trigger the “upload” message, only occasionally.
FYI, my database is synced on iCloud, although the database is on local storage (not in iCloud Drive; I understand not to do that and why).
Well, if you decide you want to get to the bottom of it: In DEVONthink, hold the Option key and select Help > Report Bug.
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