Problem with old database (from ver. 5.4.something) in new version (5.6.18)

[Panther]

After playing around with a new test database in version 5.6.18 till I got the hang of the new version, I decided to try working with my old/main database that I was last using on version 5.4 something (the last one before 5.5 came out).  I made a copy of both the old database and the subject images onto a brand new hard drive so I could try out the new version without endangering my real production copies.  The database and the images were on a new physical drive, but with the same drive letter and relative position that they had been in on my production machine.

I told iMatch to open the database, and it appeared to do so just fine.  During the process it said it had a new exif tool version and it would update the files for the new tags or something, and that seemed to go OK as well (as far as I could tell).  It also asked me if I wanted to perform a database analysis (or whatever it calls that step) because it had been a long time since I last did that (I hadn't worked on my main database for several months while I waited to decide whether to move to the new version) - I let it do that and it reported that it passed with no errors.  At one point it did tell me I had no dictionary installed so it couldn't do spell checking, but I was working offline and couldn't download a dictionary like it suggested so I just told it not to show me that message again (I don't really need to use the spell checker anyway).

It appeared to pull in all the relevant files, and for the most part things seemed OK while I was spot-checking them.  There were a number of files that seemed to have lost some of the categories they should have had, but most of them seemed to have all the right categories and I couldn't swear that the missing ones were not just user error (I'll have to check my old production copy to see if they're also missing on that copy, but that was on another machine so I couldn't do that checking in this session).  Therefore, I decided to close the database and check things out tomorrow.  That's when I ran into problems.

As iMatch was closing the database, it popped up a dialog box saying it had encountered errors.  I chose the option to view the log file, but I couldn't make any sense out of it, so I was hoping maybe you could take a look at it and give me some clue as to what might be going wrong and how serious it might be.  I've attached the log file it opened up during that closing process.

Thanks.





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[Mario]

There is no difference between the databases used for the 5.4 and 5.5 (and now 5.6) versions. Nothing can go 'lost' just by installing newer IMatch versions. Even if there is a difference between the databases (e.g., when IMatch introduces new features which require changes to the database) these changes are always upwards compatible, meaning that IMatch upgrades the database when it opens it for the first time.

I see a warning about a missing spell dictionary and one error, while loading/processing a collection. There is no additional info about the reason for the problem. May have be temporary. You can switch IMatch to debug logging under Help > Support to gather more detailed information in the log file. Then restart IMatch, work normally, and when IMatch again reports an error when you close it, we'll have more data in the log file.

If no error is reported, it was only temporary and you can switch logging back to normal under Help > Support.

[Panther]

Thanks Mario - I checked my old/production version of the database and it's got those same images missing some categories too, so that must just be down to me having added some categories at some point and failing to go back and assigning them to some of the older images I'd done a while before.

I added the missing dictionary files and then started up the new copy on 5.6.18, and this time it opened and closed a few times without throwing off any error messages, so I assume that must just have been some transient issue (perhaps related to the originally-missing dictionary files).

So, looks like the transition from the old version to the new one has probably gone just fine.

I have another issue unrelated to that now, but I'll start a new thread on that one (presumably not a problem with iMatch - just something I can't figure out so hopefully someone will clue me in).

Thanks again for such great support!