[Digikam-users] Syncing Digikam collections and databases between different computers

Wed Dec 3 09:37:16 GMT 2014

Hi Andrew,

On Mon, Dec 01, 2014 at 10:57:35PM +0000, Andrew Goodbody wrote:
> Please look at the bug here https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=261277 It
> contains information about updating the albumroot entry and you can even
> have multiple values for accessing the same files from different systems, in
> comment #13. Unfortunately there is still no GUI frontend to edit this in a
> user friendly manner.

when I first read the report, I didn't see the relation with my problem,
but then I stumbled upon comment #20 (which should have been the one
you wanted to talk about, I suppose?) and replaced the entry in the
database from:

sqlite> SELECT id, identifier, specificPath FROM AlbumRoots;
id    identifier                                           specificPath      
----  ---------------------------------------------------  ------------------
1     volumeid:?uuid=bd411a98-5c98-4370-89ee-551f180b09c1  /jon/images/photos

... to the following:

sqlite> SELECT id, identifier, specificPath FROM AlbumRoots;
id    identifier                              specificPath
----  --------------------------------------  ------------
1     volumeid:?path=/home/jon/images/photos  / 

which seems to work as I wanted this to work in the first place.

I don't know what's the logic behind the 'identifier' field, I have I
think a much simpler use-case than what it seems to be intended for, but
at least storing the path of the collection makes more sense to me.

> Still however I think a better solution would be to have the albumroot
> information stored in the digikamrc file and only have the relative paths in
> the database.

I like the idea of having the collections and all their data
self-contained. But I completely understand that might be a problem when
moving folders around between different machines with different folder
structures...
Indeed having the album root configuration stored in a different place
would have also probably helped me in this case...

 Jonathan

> Andrew
> 
> On 01/12/14 20:25, Mick Sulley wrote:
> >Yes agreed!  I think it should be possible to arrange a SQLite script to
> >auto run to change the UUID back to what it expects, but I have not
> >tried it.  I cannot really see why the UUID is in that record at all,
> >the path is there and that should be sufficient I would have thought.
> >
> >If you do come up with a way to automatically sort it out please share.
> >
> >Mick
> >
> >
> >On 01/12/14 20:07, Jonathan Ballet wrote:
> >>Hi Mick,
> >>
> >>thanks for your reply!
> >>
> >>On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 06:54:10PM +0000, Mick Sulley wrote:
> >>>Hi Jonathan,
> >>>
> >>>Yes I raised this when I started using DigiKam, as far as I know
> >>>there is no
> >>>proper fix.  If you just accept at the message it works OK, just takes a
> >>>little time.  It is also possible to add a database script to fix it,
> >>>here
> >>>is an answer that I received to that question back in 2013.  I never got
> >>>around to creating the script, I just accept when asked.
> >>I would be OK just to accept this, but my laptop is not *that* powerful
> >>and it takes ages just to rescan all the images, even if nothing
> >>changes.
> >>
> >>I'm going to try such a script, as you mentioned, although it's going
> >>to be, at best, impracticable.
> >>
> >>I actually wonder what is the purpose of this UUID. If I choose to store
> >>the content of Digikam's database into MySQL, is this also stored? I
> >>supposed that using a remote database server was to allow sharing
> >>between several computers, but if it's stored, that more or less defeats
> >>the purpose of having a remote database, isn't it? And if this UUID is
> >>not stored, then I wonder what it is using SQLite?
> >>
> >>Hum, I guess I'll need to have a look...
> >>
> >>  Jonathan
> >>
> >>
> >>>On Wed, 20 Feb 2013, Mick Sulley wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>>When I sync my album between laptop and desktop I get a message when I
> >>>>open it on the destination machine saying that the collection is
> >>>>available
> >>>>but the identifier has changed.
> >>>>
> >>>>I have looked in the database on each machine and it seems that the
> >>>>problem is that the AlbumRoots table is slightly different, the
> >>>>identifier
> >>>>field is different -
> >>>>desktop = "volumeid:?uuid=bf835257-ad63-4580-9692-9d2600740cd1"
> >>>>laptop = "volumeid:?uuid=2a6a238c-c404-46b6-886f-873683917b9c"
> >>>>
> >>>>It does seem to be OK if I just accept the message and continue, but is
> >>>>there any way to stop it happening?  Is it likely to cause any
> >>>>problems?
> >>>Hi Mick,
> >>>
> >>>Well, this is an old issue, often discussed on this list.
> >>>Identifying disk devices by UUID, instead of mount pathname as it should
> >>>be - at least on Unix platforms - makes the database hardware dependant.
> >>>
> >>>Same problem occurs if you manage your collections on USB drives,
> >>>even on
> >>>the same machine. Changing a drive by a backup drive, or replacing an
> >>>old
> >>>drive by a new one with a mirror copy of collections will also change
> >>>the
> >>>physical device UUID.
> >>>
> >>>The (dirty) fix to work around sync problems is to use small scripts to
> >>>make the transfert, e.g. using rsync, then update the database from
> >>>SQL command line tool and issue things like that :
> >>>UPDATE albumroots SET identifier = 'volumeid:?uuid= new UUID'
> >>>  WHERE identifier = 'volumeid:?uuid = old UUID';
> >>>
> >>>Jean-François
> >>>
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