How to avoid the "Empty file" error

DEVONthink
1

In some of my indexed folders I have true zero byte files (leftovers from LaTeX runs) like Data Review.snm (along side the real document Data Review.pdf and the source Data Review.tex).

Problem is, DEVONthink complains with an error “Empty File” in the log window and thinks the database was not repaired properly. Deleting the *.snm file doesn’t help in the long run, because an update to the LaTexX document will subsequently regenerate this file.

How can I tell DEVONthink either to ignore this file or to be happy with its zero-byte size?

Thanks for any pointers!

1 Like
2

You can’t at the moment, but DT are considering such a mechanism for a future release.

3

The next release will improve this.

2 Likes
4

Cool. Looking forward to it.

5

I just saw other posts (e.g. Update on potential data loss - DEVONthink To Go - DEVONtechnologies Community) about zero byte files, but the zero byte fiels in these other posts are ghost files not true meant-to-be zero byte files.

How do true zero byte files affect the syncing?

6

It inhibits syncing at this time.

7

Hi Christian. What’s the status on this improvement? How can we utilise it?

(See also this thread.)

8

See How to tell DEVONthink to accept zero byte files - #4 by rmschne

As this surely very unique to you and few others, best to just do something different on your end.

9

The improvement was added a long time ago, can’t remember the version number though.

10

Thanks for this.

But do I somehow have to switch it on? I’m on the newest version and I still get Empty File errors…

11

No need to enable anything but there might be still such errors, it’s indeed recommended to avoid such files as long as it’s not a plain text file.

12

Thanks Christian

This explains a lot!

What files are for DEVONthink text files? It must go by extension - because for zero-byte files it can’t, I’d say, go by content. :dizzy_face:

13

  • Is an .snm file a text file?

    • If so, see the Appendix > Hidden Preferences section of the built-in Help and manual for information on how to add additional plain text extensions. You will then need to rebuild the database for them to be recognized.
1 Like
14

Yes!

That’s the way to go! Thanks for point it out. I’m excited: This should to be the solution for me!

I’m lately getting into the habit of DB rebuilding… :wink:

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I’m lately getting into the habit of DB rebuilding… :wink:

This shouldn’t be a common thing to do.