Suddenly I Can't Create Anything New in DT4

Suddenly, I can no longer create new documents or tags in DT4.

Everything was working perfectly one minute… then I entered a new Tag in the Info Panel of a document, and upon pressing Enter (which always creates a new tag if it doesn’t already exist), I instead heard an alert sound. I looked in the Globals Tags section of the Navigate panel where all new tags usually appear, but the new tag wasn’t there.

Next I noticed that when trying to create a new Plain Text Document, Rich Text Document, etc. using any method (Data Menu > New > Plain Text…, shortcut keys), a new document WOULD appear for a split second, then the alert would sound and the new document instantly disappears. I noticed that the Name of each new document I attempt to create is keeping a running count (New Plain Text 1, New Plain Text 2, etc.), then when I exit and restart DT, that count resets to 1 again, however, no document is ever created. (See attached video.)

Oddly enough, I can DUPLICATE any document and it does create a new copy. I can also IMPORT new documents, and move them from Inbox to my Research database. All that works fine… I just can’t manually create new documents or tags.

What in the world have I done to cause this?! This same issue now happens with all my databases, so it’s not a problem with just one.

Here’s what I’ve checked:

  • I do have Read/Write database permissions
  • I have run a Verify & Repair Database (Results were clear)
  • I have restarted Devonthink
  • I have rebooted my Mac

System info:

  • Devonthink 4.0.2
  • MacBook Pro M2 Max
  • Sequoia 15.6

Any clue what’s going on??

Do you use any smart rules?

You, sir, are a genius!! That’s exactly what it was.

I have a Smart Rule to OCR all newly created/imported images to a PDF and then delete the original image file. Somehow while editing that rule I apparently accidentally deleted the line where it only runs the rule on Image files, so it was running for every new file.

I swear I don’t think I’ll live long enough to learn everything there is about DT. Thank you for your help. You saved the day!!

1 Like

Glad to hear it’s working again as expected.