Bug 375645

Summary: Altered files cause digiKam to scan always
Product: [Applications] digikam Reporter: J-o-h-n- <forgivenbyjc>
Component: Metadata-EngineAssignee: Digikam Developers <digikam-bugs-null>
Status: REPORTED ---    
Severity: normal CC: caulier.gilles
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 5.5.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description J-o-h-n- 2017-01-28 07:25:43 UTC 
When Metadata -> Behavior -> all disabled -and- Miscellaneous -> 'Scan for new items at startup (makes startup slower)' is disabled.

If metadata is altered by an external program (exiftool, exiv2, xnView, etc), digiKam rescans all of the altered photos.

This is time consuming.  When working with a large number of albums and photos, excessive rescans can severely slow productivity.  (Sadly, this is why I have time to create this bug report)

Expected behavior is digiKam should only alter the database (digikam4.db) upon demand (photos are untouched and not scanned) and can be synced (photos altered and scanned) overnight.

Ideally 'Use lazy synchronization' would work similar to this, however altering large amounts of metadata using lazy synchronization takes just as long or longer as without lazy.  DigiKam seems to be configuring the exiv2 statements to queue which is a time consuming process.  Configuring the exiv2 statements should be done at the time of synchronization, not before.

All scanning should be able to be disabled so working with the database is not interrupted.
Comment 1 caulier.gilles 2020-08-02 13:07:37 UTC 
digiKam 7.0.0 stable release is now published:

https://www.digikam.org/news/2020-07-19-7.0.0_release_announcement/

We need a fresh feedback on this file using this version.

Best Regards

Gilles Caulier
Comment 2 caulier.gilles 2023-04-21 14:40:25 UTC 
@John

digiKam 8.0.0 is released. This file still valid ?

Gilles Caulier
Comment 3 caulier.gilles 2023-10-12 05:57:55 UTC 
John,

What's about this file using current 8.2.0 AppImage Linux bundle ? It's
reproducible ?

https://files.kde.org/digikam/

Note: bundle is now based on Qt 5.15.11 and KDE framework 5.110.

Thanks in advance

Gilles Caulier
Comment 4 caulier.gilles 2025-12-18 09:13:36 UTC 
Maik,

Another entry where we don't have any feedback since a while. Can you reproduce on your computer. On mine (macOS), altered files are simply ignored in this kind of configuration).

Gilles