Erroneous "Offline Folders Found" message

[Hambra]

I get the message "Offline Folder Found" when I open a database. But I cannot find any folders that are offline. I tried relocating the topmost folder or even higher level lower folders (although they are all online at the correct location and do not really need to be relocated). It makes no difference. I still receive the message.

Any ideas what could be the reason?

I could, of course, just suppress the message in the Preferences. But that would not solve the underlying problem, if there should be one.

Many thanks!

[Mario]

This notification is only shown when a top-level folder is offline.
If you cannot see the off-line folder in the Media & Folders View, open the log file vie Help menu > Support and search for

offline.

This shows you log entries for folders found to be offline, e.g.

Offline check for folder 'C:\data\images\Mix\': offline.

[Hambra]

Thank you for the response.

I searched IMATCH6_LOG.TXT

There is no instance of "offline". So it seems that no folder is logged as "offline".

But the message "Offline Folders Found" persists.

[Mario]

The IMatch engine logs this message at the same time it sends an event about it to the system.
This event is what finally causes the notification to show.

I don't know anything about your system or configuration. But at one time during the first phase of the IMatch startup, one top-level folder was not accessible to IMatch. IMatch asked the file system for information about a top-level folder, but Windows returned an error.

[Hambra]

So Windows returns an error which IMatch reports to me, the user, by issuing the "Offline Folders Found" notification. But IMatch appears not to report the error to itself. How does IMatch log this event in its own logfile? Not by logging a folder as offline and not by flagging the folder as offline in the Media & Folder tree.

Is there another error message I can search for in the logfile? How can one trace the source of the error?

In the end, it's not really important, the database functions without a problem, all folders and files are accessible. Just the error message at startup is a little irritating. But I'll just turn it off in Preferences.

Thank you for your help!

[Mario]

The notification is shown when the engine finds a top-level folder it cannot access. It does this check once when the database is loaded. This allows IMatch to notify the user. When the event is raised, the offline. entry is logged to the log file. You can search for this term.

The Media & Folders tree scans folders regularly to identify off-line folders and also when it receives file system notifications from Windows. This process is what's setting the "offline" and "needs rescan" icons in the tree.

So far there was never a report about IMatch showing the offline folder navigation without the folder being marked as off-line in the Media & Folders View. We need to lean more about your particular situation.

Next steps for you:

Switch IMatch to debug logging via Help menu > Support.
Close IMatch and start it again. Keep the logging set to debug.
If the offline notification shows, go to Help menu > Support > Copy Logfile.
ZIP and attach the log file created during that step.

This gives us a minimum of information to work with because when can see what IMatch is doing, which folder is considered as inaccessible etc.

[Hambra]

So that's found the problem. The log file now contains an entry for an offline folder. It is a folder that is not in the database and not even on the drive where the database and the image files are located.
It is on the root drive in the default Pictures folder. I never checked for offline folders there, since in my setup it is not used by IMatch at all – as far as I know. So I never found it. If I expand C: drive and the Pictures folder in the Folder Tree, the missing folder is shown and flagged as offline.
So the error reporting is working as it should.
The question is now why IMatch even checks a folder that is not in the database. It was certainly never consciously added to the database.
I did once relocate this database and associated files to a laptop and then back to the desktop. But never again after that. The error may have crept in then – and may well have been caused by me inadvertently. It was a long time ago. I can't remember how long the error message has been displayed, for months at least. But after checking several times and not finding the faulty folder, I ignored it. Everything was working fine, after all.
Attached is the log file and screenshots of the error message and the folder tree.
Many thanks for your help. Please excuse the delays in replying. Too many other things to do.
 

[Mario]

The log file states:

Offline check for folder 'C:\Users\Hans\Pictures\2008-08\': offline.

So the folder reported, if not immediately visible in the Media & Folders tree, is easy to identify that way.

Adding the "My Pictures" folder is offered by Match as an option in the Media & Folders View when there are no other folders in the database - as a "quick start" for new users.

IMatch does not know anything about the folders in your file system, it only cares about folders you add to your database.

[Hambra]

Well, yes, I was unaware this folder was regarded as part of my database. You live an learn.


Thank you for helping to resolve this.



Thread closed.