Install DTTG 3 beside v2 without automatic database connection

Is it possible to install DTTG 3 beside v2 without ever touching (importing DBs and settings, disabling sync for the old version) the databases and sync stores connected with v2? I am working through some serious syncing issues on my iPad and want to do some tests with v3 on my iPhone first without messing up the working settings in v2.

When version 3 launches for the first time and detects version 2, it’ll copy over the data store. From then both copies are independent from each other. But the initial copy cannot be prevented we’re afraid.

That’s what I thought. Thanks for the clarification. But v3 also disables the sync for v2. Maybe you could make this optional with one of the next patches? Re-syncing from an iCloud (legacy) sync store can get problematic at times (especially when a database is already partially downloaded) and I don’t want to lose any more data. That is, I just want to keep v2 running as it was, without v3 taking over the sync settings which I wanna set myself. Copying the data store by v3 is not a problem, of course.

It shouldn’t, and least it doesn’t work that way for me. What you are asking for is possible now.

It did. When I opened v2 after installing and using v3 all db sync settings in were turned off in v2.

Try turning them back on, it should work. The only know limitation is that you cannot use DEVONthink To Go v2 with CloudKit sync.

I’m also dealing with another problem (Incomplete sync in DTTG3? - #15 by BLUEFROG) and don’t want to endanger the files that I downloaded already. Therefore I didn’t even install v3 on my phone, yet. Reconnecting the database with the sync store afterwards might render some files in both v2 and v3 inaccessible. I’d rather not risk that as long as I have no idea what the problem could be.

Understood, but be assured that you can have sync enabled on v2 and v3 on the same device if need be. Here’s a test iPad where I have both running side-by-side and actively syncing.

Same here. After installing v3, I noticed that sync settings from v2 were not only turned off, but also removed (apart from 1 Bonjour connection which I just had to turn back on, my main iCloud sync was just plainly removed).

That’s actually intentional as we didn’t want to end up with two copies of DEVONthink To Go on the same device messing things up in a sync. You can, however, set it up manually again which makes sure the two installations use different identifiers for the sync.

This is identical to what we do when you transition from DEVONthink 2 to 3 on the Mac.

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I know and I use v2 beside v3 on my iPad. That might be contributing to my sync problem.

I totally understand that and this is without doubt the best and most convenient option for almost every scenario.

But since it is unclear whether metadata sync renders some of my files inaccessible I do not want to alter any settings for v2. This is based on the assumption that as soon as I re-enable the sync store for v2 (after it has been disabled by v3) it will re-check the whole database meta data set, won’t it?

On the iPad I did just that and received an error message in v2 that the database was not completely downloaded (which was incorrect according to the prior state—the whole database was set to always download for years and I did not ever encounter any files that had to be downloaded) and syncing it would pose the risk of data loss. That was after using v3 for a little while with the databases and sync settings of v2.

So to circle back to my initial request: It would be helpful to have some way of circumventing that convenience automatism. I also recognise that this seems to be a very special case that’s not worth the extra work. Maybe let’s see if others come up with similar problems …

No, it’s not possible to avoid the automatic copy of the data store as well as moving the sync settings to V3, we’re afraid.