Why are dropbox files marked off-line?

[muggost]

Hi, I'm using Imatch in conjunction with Dropbox, from two pc's. My stationary pc at home and my laptop when I'm travelling. Both the Imatch database and my pictures are stored in Dropbox, and I'm the only user. I'm not opening the db from both computers simulatenously.

Whenever I've opened the db from my laptop (and closed it again), Imatch on the stationary pc reports all pictures as offline. I have to relocate them (to the same folder C:\users\username\dropbox\The_Archive). And vice versa when i've opened them from the stationary pc.

Why does this happen?

Thanks for any replies )

[Mario]

Both the Imatch database and my pictures are stored in Dropbo

Please be aware that Dropbox has no notion of handling open files properly. If it does not handle the constant updates or the temporary transaction files the IMatch database system file products, keeping your Database may be a recipe for disaster and may cause database damage. I don't know how Dropbox handles such situations. It  was truly not designed to hold live database system storage files.

C:\users\username\dropbox\The_Archive on you PC is not the same as C:\users\username\dropbox\The_Archive on your laptop. IMatch identifies disks and media by their unique media serial number (to deal with removable media and roaming media in enterprise environments etc).

When you add files from C: disk with the media serial number 1234ABCD to your database, but later you use the database on a system where the C: disk has the media serial number XYZ789, IMatch will (correctly) make the files as off-line. See also the help topic for Relocation in the IMatch help for details.

You can use the Portability features added to IMatch 5.7 (see: https://www.photools.com/release-notes/?productId=107 and then IMatch help) to make IMatch automatically relocate the disk in your database between the two different disks.

[muggost]

I see... This poses some problems for me. I have used Imatch for years on my stationary computer, and it works very well (thanks for making such a great (and stable!) piece of software!). However, I'm doing genealogy research as a hobby project of mine, so I travel around speaking to different folks, and take and scan a lot of really old pictures. I havent bought the upgrade for 5.7 yet, I'm still on 5.4.18.

Is there another way to sync a database between laptop and stationary pc?

[Mario]

You can normally sync by simple copying the database when it is properly closed. This ensures that all changes have been written, the temporary transaction files and journal files are closed etc. Just copy the entire folder containing your database to the Dropbox folder after IMatch has been closed. Or ask Dropbox if they handle open files properly using the features built into Windows for this purpose. Usually Dropbox is for sharing photos and documents, not for keeping database disk storage files with hot journals.

Or, you can just use the Pack & Go utility built into IMatch 5. See "Traveling with IMatch" in the IMatch help file, which covers your situation exactly. 5.7 has added the ability to automatically relocate a database after moving it between computers. this is not available in 5.4.

Please also note that support for IMatch 5.4 has ended in June already.

[muggost]

Ok, thanks for your help!