I’m running DevonThink 3 on my 2 iMacs and my MacBook Air. Each one of them has an “inbox”.
I’m synching everything to Dropbox and I was pretty certain that my “Inbox” is a copy of the same database synched across all 3 devices… now I got a “I think another instance of DevonThink is using this database” dialog… is this just a confusing error message (i.e. “another local copy of DevonThink…”) or have I set up my inbox improperly and I should have a separate one for each Mac?
I’m certainly confused. May I ask what you mean by syncing everything to Dropbox? Do you mean your database (as a file) is on/syncing to Dropbox? Or do you mean you have set up the sync in the DT preferences and selected Dropbox as a location?
If you mean the former: don’t do that. DEVONtech explicitly recommend against doing so.
If you mean the latter: DT has a global inbox, and each database has its own inbox. These are synced across devices using DT’s sync-mechanism. Because each device has its own local copy of each database (incl. the global inbox) its impossible that a second device would be accessing the database at the same time.
If you have done the latter: please explain in more detail, preferably with images, what is happening. Oh, and hi, and welcome! (And if you have put your database on Dropbox (rather than using DT’s sync), I recommend you rectify that step and take some time to look at the DT manual).
Is this referring to another local instance running (which there isn’t) or warning me that I’ll corrupt the database if it’s open on more than one machine?
Thanks for clarifying - you’ve done everything right then That message is probably referring to a database which was not closed properly (did you have to terminate DT for any reason, or restart you Mac whilst DT and the database were open?). Assuming you only have one local instance of DT and you are seeing this message on opening DT, simply click Continue; DT will open the database, verify it, and you’re good to go. You should not routinely see this message - I only ever see it if DT was force-closed (which is not a common occurrence).
So to specifically answer your question: that message is referring to a local copy of DT accessing the database. Each of your machines has its own copy of the database; these copies are synced with one another, but that will not cause the message you are seeing.
Is this referring to another local instance running (which there isn’t) or warning me that I’ll corrupt the database if it’s open on more than one machine?
That message is probably referring to a database which was not closed properly (did you have to terminate DT for any reason, or restart you Mac whilst DT and the database were open?). Assuming you only have one local instance of DT and you are seeing this message on opening DT, simply click Continue; DT will open the database, verify it, and you’re good to go. You should not routinely see this message - I only ever see it if DT was force-closed (which is not a common occurrence).