[digiKam-users] Migrating from Digikam 4 to 6

[Andrew Goodbody]

No, the migration tool will not move or copy your picture files. At 
least not unless you are doing something unusual that you have not told 
us about.

I suspect that you may be suffering from the change in location of where 
the digikamrc file was stored, so the new version of digikam is not 
aware of where the old version kept its settings. That may not be well 
dealt with as you are leaping over a major release, ie digikam 5. But 
then I do not remember precisely when that happened, so maybe not.

But you are moving from a very old and obsolete version of digikam to an 
old and obsolete version of digikam. You would do better to follow 
Giles' advice and download the latest release appimage for digikam 7.

If there is anything you are not sure about please ask a specific 
question with as much detail as possible. Explain what you see and why 
it concerns you. I do not remember ever needing to run any sort of 
migration so I cannot guide you on it with the question you have asked. 
You are assuming a level of familiarity with a once in a lifetime task 
that we simply do not have nor should we be expected to have.

Andrew

On 16/01/2021 15:18, J D wrote:
> Does the migration tool move the picture files or make copies of them? 
> Is it possible to do the migration in-place?
> 
> BR,
> angrdtsk
> 
> la 16. tammik. 2021 klo 15.40 Gilles Caulier (caulier.gilles at gmail.com 
> <mailto:caulier.gilles at gmail.com>) kirjoitti:
> 
>     Le sam. 16 janv. 2021 à 14:25, J D <angrdtsk at gmail.com
>     <mailto:angrdtsk at gmail.com>> a écrit :
>      >
>      > Hi, and thanks for quick reply,
>      >
>      > I got Digikam 6.4 along with a Linux distro, so updating it may
>     not be that simple.
> 
>     We provide an universal Linux AppImage bundle. There is nothing to
>     install, it does not install anything. AppImage is just a simple
>     executable which uncompresses the whole dependencies in a virtual disk
>     in memory and runs the application using chroot.
> 
>     It's simple to use.
> 
>     Just to be sure, backup all your database files previously, in case
>     of...
> 
>      >
>      > Do I have any options in addition to using the migration tool?
> 
>     No, because we have fixed more than 1300 bugs since the 6.x release,
>     so it will be complicated to resume all problems from previous
>     releases.
> 
>      >
>      > What would be the preferred (hopefully future-proof) solution for
>     this case?
>      >
> 
>     This kind of huge migration must be performed carefully. This is my
>     recommandations:
> 
>     1/ Backup databases in all cases.
>     2/ Change Setup/metadata/xmp sidecar option and create a new XMP
>     sidecar file for all images. Use Maintenance tool.
>     3/ Stop digiKam and remove your previous database.
>     4/ start the new 7.2.0 appimage. It will ask to recreate the database
>     from scratch scanning collection (especially XMP sidecar).
>     5/ Let's start the scan and take a coffee.
> 
>     Alternative, more faster of course :
> 
>     1/ Backup databases in all cases.
>     2/ run migration database tool
>     3/ setup original DB and target DB.
>     4/ process migration and take a coffee.
> 
>     I always processed the first solution with my huge familly collection
>     (250Mb on SSD with sqlite).
> 
>     Best
> 
>     Gilles Caulier
>