Odd behaviour with Relocate and UNC paths

[ThomasAdams]

Hello,

I have just updated to Imatch 2019.6.2 on windows 10 all updates applied to 1903. My File server is also a Windows 10 system all updates applied to 1903 and running Stable bits drivepool.

My previous Windows home server V1 had a photos of my wife's on it at the UNC path
\\Server2\Users\[username]\[usernames] Photos\

The new UNC path is \\SERVER01\[username]\[usernames] Photos\

When I attempt to use the Relocate feature for offline files, it has the check box with the correct "Folders to relocate" and when I select the new location is where the odd behavior comes in.

I click on ... and navigate to \\SERVER01\[username]\[usernames] Photos\ and hit OK. The dialog box closes and in the Path is \\SERVER01\[username] I click OK. When the Relocate Drive or Media window is shown, is states that the folders do not exist in the target path and lists the following target path:

//SERVER01/[username][username]\usernames Photos

I cannot click continue as it is grayed out obviously, so I must click cancel. Any ideas? I can copy the files to a local drive (done) and relocate. However before I do I thought I would post this and see if anyone else has ran into this.

Regards,
Tom

[Mario]

Is the path already wrong after you have closed the folder browser dialog box?
What happens if you just type in the correct UNC path int the dialog? Is it correctly applied?


I've just made a quick test, relocating a folder from

\\PTCNAS-1\data\photos\2018\June to \\PTCNAS-2\data\photos\test\June

(using the browser dialog in the Relocate dialog) and it worked just fine.
The data is stored on external NAS systems running SAMBA under Linux so this is probably similar to what you are using.

[ThomasAdams]

Mario,

Thank you for your reply, I have just made a short video (~5 MB WMV) using a backup of the database. Do you prefer I email it or PM it to you?

I did in the video also try to manually enter the address in the browser field to what what happened and it also did not yield the results I would expect. I have rebooted the machine(s), I can also access the files on the Windows browser over the network and I am an administrator on both systems.

Regards,
Tom

[ThomasAdams]

I turned on Full Debugging, to attempt to capture additional data, and it worked the first time  . I tried again and it doesn't work repeatedly.

[Mario]

it would be important to find out more about the circumstances when this happens on your system.
I use NAS systems and Linux/Windows servers via UNC paths in all my databases and I relocate frequently without problems.

If we learn more about when this happens or get some details in the IMatch log file, we can further investigate. When I can reproduce it, I can fix it.

Please don't send video files. They are deleted by my firewalls immediately. For security reasons.

[ThomasAdams]

Mario,

I can now replicate the issue. Reference image attached below. If I attempt to relocate by right clicking the drive (red arrow), I see the issues I originally posted about. If I right click on the folder (blue arrow) I am able to relocate without issue.

Regards,
Tom

[Mario]

There are no real "drives" for UNC paths. You relocate the indicated share to what, exactly? What do you select/enter in the dialog and what is produced from it?

[aep]

Hello Mario,

I know this is a very old post, but see the problem Thomas indicates. I just purchased and installed iMatch (after forever on-and-off playing with the trial) and let it upgrade my database. I had moved my photos in a similar way as Thomas did outside of iMatch. Basically I moved it from \\nas\photos to \\nas\xphotos where nas is the name of my file server (the directory names themselves are not what I used, but of course that is irrelevant). iMatch correctly showed the photos as offline. I right-clicked on the share "drive" (above the root folder; Thomas's red arrow in his last post) and selected relocate. It let me give the new location, but then did nothing. When I selected the folder (Thomas's blue arrow) and selected relocate it worked fine. If the former doesn't (or shouldn't) work, it probably shouldn't show the relocate option--it took me a while to figure out what the problem was (this post pointed me in the right direction).

On a related note, and perhaps not a problem, if I browse in the relocate dialog to a UNC share it puts in Linux style slashes ("/") rather than Windows style ("\").

Anyway, my problem is solved but wanted to let you know.

[Mario]

How strange.

Can you please  run a database diagnosis and check the diagnosis log file for for UNC path names containing additional \\ after the first \\, for example  \\server\\share\folder
The log file can be opened from the diagnosis dialog.

I have seen this once a while ago, but I have no clue how this can happen. But that would probably mess up the folder selection for top-level folders when trying to relocate an entire UNC share.

[aep]

My apologies for the late response; I didn't realize you had responded (I will check better in the future!). I did as requested; there are no double backslashes except after the file server name. This is, however, after I corrected the links as I said. I restored the previous db (which was the one I used in the trial, so upgraded the version as required when I opened it). I ran the diagnostics there and there were a lot (>600) warnings but no errors. A couple samples:

Checking Cache:
    487 files in cache folder.
    Error: Orphaned cache file for OID [93258] found. Deleted.
    Error: Orphaned cache file for OID [93259] found. Deleted.
[plus about 20 more similar lines)

Checking photools.com metadata tags for consistency:
    Warning: Folder invalid for file [1]. Repaired.
    Warning: Folder invalid for file [2]. Repaired.
[continues sequentially until file [731]]

I tried again right-clicking on the share and selecting relocate, pointed it to the new share. It thought about it for a short time (perhaps 15 seconds) and returned to the UI with no changes (it did not relocate).