Sync: Large size discrepancy between Dropbox folder and db

Currently my two DTPro databases are 127.3MB and 920.7MB, respectively. The sync folder for Dropbox, however, is 52.79GB - quite the discrepancy. A good portion of my database is indexed items, which may be an issue, but I’m not sure accounts for the large difference in size.

Is anybody else having this problem?

How large are the databases according to File > Database Properties?

96.2MB and 14.2GB, respectively.

Hmm. That’s quite massive.

Is anything in the DEVONthink/transactions/ folder? It’s possible for stuff to accumulate there over time, particularly if you were encountering issues.

Yes, that folder is 38.38GB.

Okay, you can neutralize that with extreme prejudice :slight_smile:

Have you been having trouble with Sync? Those folders should be cleaned up after a successful sync and only left behind in the event of a crash/network failure/other abrupt sort of failure. Actually, they shouldn’t even be created unless every record had to be newly copied, so did you perhaps encounter a lot of issues on your first sync?

The only thing I’ve noticed is that my available Dropbox space has been rapidly dwindling after the first sync. I thought there might be a problem so I deleted the folder and removed DTPro’s access to Dropbox then did it over again, and the same thing happened.

Are you saying I can just delete the contents of that folder? How do you suggest I proceed?

Hmm. That’s not all you should notice… you should also notice that Sync is trying to transfer several gigabytes of data every time you sync :slight_smile:

Would you mind opening a support ticket for this? It makes it much easier for me to track and exchange (possibly personal) information with you concerning this issue.

I assumed the rapidly dwindling Dropbox space was due to an error in the syncing, but I never actually sat and watched the sync take place.

Support ticket submitted.

I’ve sent you some instructions, but I’ll post this here for general information:

Regarding the oversized transactions folder: this is where using Dropbox gets aggravating, because they don’t allow deleting more than 10,000 files at one time through their web interface (or through the API either). To delete more than 10K files at one time, all of the files have to be on an up-to-date client, meaning that you’d have to download all of that back onto your machine just so you can delete it.

Presumably, Dropbox did this to avoid overuse of their resources, but all it really does is make anything interacting with it rather complex to program.

Let me see what I can do about this and I’ll get back to you.

I am having the same issues- if the file does not sync successfully (it’s a very large database, 30gigs) then the transactions folder half copies but does not clean itself up from the Dropbox folder after I restart the sync.

The sync is stopping because it occasionally finds a bad or missing file. I delete the bad file and restart the sync and the file is huge again.

After reading this thread I deleted the large transaction folder in Dropbox and will try again.

Please keep me notified of progress on this issue.

I have the same problem - cannot get the databases set up as there constantly are files missing. Would love to know how to proceed to get this working.
Cheers!

Tools > Rebuild Database before Syncing.

I’m having the same (or similar) issue. Total database size: 7GB, but uses up 63GB of Dropbox space. My machines have slowed down considerably since I started using Sync.

Will submit a support ticket.

Do your databases have indexed files?

Yes.

Do they have many GB of indexed files?

About 6GB of indexed files. That’s a bunch but nowhere near the space used up by DT in Dropbox.

The quickest way to solve the problem is probably to delete the contents of the Apps/DEVONthink/transactions folder in Dropbox. If that’s empty, or if it doesn’t make much of a difference, there would seem to be another problem.

Deleting the transaction folder took hours, because I had to delete hundreds of sub-folders individually (due to Dropbox’s limitations on the number of files one can delete in one go).

It liberated 5GB of space in my Dropbox account, but there are still 51GB of Dropbox space that are unaccounted for. Is there a way to tell how big the “databases” folder is in Dropbox (on the web-interface)?