New Group Created after using Sorter

[sawxray]

Starting today, I have noticed a weird behavior in DTPO.

If I drag an attachment from Mail to the Sorter Global Inbox, a new empty Group titled, “Release” is created. I have as many of these as times I have dropped files on the Sorter.

Anybody else seen this? Any thoughts on troubleshooting?

[aedwards]

I am not seeing the same when testing here with Apple Mail. I have seen folders created when using Thunderbird as your mail client, however this is due to how that application shares its mail data.

[sawxray]

Thanks for the quick response!

I have used DTPO for over two years, and this is the first I have seen of this. It is absolutely reproducible.

It only happens when I drag a file to the Global Inbox, not to my other inboxes. It happens when I drag a file from anywhere, not just from Mail.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot?

Cheers!

[korm]

Since you keep getting the same group name, it sounds like a case of “stuck folders”. First, quit the Sorter. Empty the Trash and then look at the Trash to see if there are any locked groups in the Global Inbox trash. If there are, unlock them (Tools > Show Info) and empty the Trash again.

Then, try selecting the Global Inbox in the sidebar and running Tools > Verify and Repair. Restart Sorter.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, move everything out of the Global Inbox to some other database, quit Sorter, quit DEVONthink, and navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/DEVONthink Pro 2. Move Inbox.dtBase2 to the Desktop. Restart DEVONthink. Restart Sorter.

What happens?

[sawxray]

Thanks for the reply. Here is the sequence:

I quit the Sorter, verified the Global Inbox (which had a missing file that I resolved). I emptied the Trash. No remaining groups or other items were present in the Trash.

I verified all other databases.

I quit and restarted.

Same issue.

I have thousands of files in the Global due to a lot of recent scanning by myself and others. I don’t want to move these to another database if I can help it. Anything else I can try before I do so?

[sawxray]

If it helps at all…

1. When I drag any file, then switch to DTPO, instead of focusing on my Global Inbox, it focuses on this new, empty folder.

2. If I import from DTPO, the new, empty folder doesn’t appear. It appears related to using the sorter.

Thanks!

[korm]

Hmmm … well, I found a posting I was looking for earlier. Try Alan’s advice here

SORTER

What type of file is giving your a phantom folder? You can reset the Sorter back to its default state of just the global inbox by: Open DEVONthink and ensure that every document you have stored in the Sorter has been transferred to DEVONthink. Open DEVONthink preferences, select the Sorter tab and quit the Sorter. In Finder select the menu option Go->Go to Folder and type the following ~/Library/Application Support and press the Go button. Find and rename the folder DEVONthink Sorter. From DE…

After that, what happens?

[sawxray]

Good ole reliable Korm!

OK, here is what I did and what I found:

I quit the Sorter and went to the Library/Application Support/DevonThink Sorter folder.

Therein I found a Default.sorter file, and a Global Inbox folder.

In the folder, I found a folder named ‘Release,’ the one that kept showing up. I ALSO found about 550 MB of applications, just applications, that I had downloaded at some time in the past.

I renamed the Global Inbox folder, then restarted the Sorter from DTPO. I dragged a file, and, Voila! No new ‘Release’ folder!

Now, the Sorter had a different look so I replaced the Default.sorter file with the old one, and the Sorter is back to where it was.

And it may be just me, but DTPO seems faster.

NOW-what the heck are all those applications? Does DTP handle apps differently than files? I have noticed in the past that I have to import a .zip of an app to import it, but didn’t realize that there would be such cruft accumulating in this hidden place.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I hope it helps somebody else. I also wonder if other people have this accumulation in their Global Inbox folder.

Cheers!

[korm]

Thanks for the clue. I can reproduce the problem exactly, now. If I create a folder (say, “APPS”) inside ~/Application Support/DEVONThink Sorter and then I put a .app inside APPS (say divvy.app), the group is created in the Global Inbox, there is nothing in the group, the app is not imported, and the original folder and app remain in ~/Application Support/DEVONThink Sorter/APPS/divvy.app.

Of course, there’s the question of why you would want to put an app inside your DEVONthink database? It seems you’ve found an edge use case I suspect the engineers didn’t anticipate. I don’t think it’s a bug, just a logical extension of DEVONthink’s default behavior of not importing apps.

[sawxray]

Thanks for laying it out nicely.

I store nearly everything in DTPO now, and barely use the finder.

I archive my apps to store them, because DTPO won’t hold the apps in native form. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for this design.

Obviously, there’s no need to have the contents of an app made searchable by DTP. I just keep them there because I like to search one place for everything. This way I can search by name at the same time I search for the name in the contents of documents. Probably no advantage to this, really.