Digikams storing concept should be that any information in the DAM should persist until such a time when the user actively chooses to remove it. There, even if I remove a file, move it to another drive, move it to a NAS or anything else - yes it will lose original file but it will show me that that connection has been broken and I can go ahead and reestablish it - I will not lose any information stored in the database. Why can't digikam do the same thing? If the file goes missing, amend the still existing preview with an icon telling the user that the original has vanished. If he then wants to do something with the original prompt him with the file dialog so that he can locate the original and thus regain access to it. If a whole folder has gone missing (by for example renaming to reflect the location) then locating one file would automatically reestablish database connection for the rest. That way digikam would be much more robust, it just doesn't bode well if the database information are still lost so easily...
Created attachment 110257 [details] corresponding mailing list discussion
You can certainly discuss it. There are many users who also edit and rearrange their images outside of digiKam and expect that after the start of digiKam all changes have been made. I remember countless bug reports for that. If all the elements have to be cleaned up manually or with the maintenance tool, I see the next problems for us. In my opinion, the database must reflect the current collection. Of course, in case of a network error, the database should not be deleted. This is an error that only occurs on Windows and is probably due to the QFileSystemWatcher. For that we will create a solution. Maik
I think there's currently a small inconsistency in Digikam. You can currently enable or disable the option to scan new folders on startup, but you cannot disable the fact that elements from the database will be cleaned automatically if they are not found anymore (well, at least in windows). I think an option to only clean missing folders manually should also be on the settings or tools menu, as there already is an option to scan new folders manually. The Kodi media player works like this, by default it never scans or deletes anything unless you explicitly tell it to do so, but you can also configure it to scan and clean the database automatically on startup. Picasa, on the other hand, adds and removes pictures automatically on the background, all the time, and you cannot disable it, but if pictures are located in a network share and it becomes unavailable, they are hidden in the album list (but not removed from the db) and reappear immediately as the network share becomes available again, without needing to re-scan folders. But only for network shares, and it detects them automatically (but only in windows). I don't know what is the philosophy behind this project in this regard, but in any case, Digikam shouldn't delete a few hundreds of GB of data without at least some confirmation.
I agree to that Digikam shouldn't delete a few hundreds of GB of data without at least some confirmation. I prefer the original suggestion to mark thumbnails which lost their original file but it should be optional, so the user can decide between. - automatic clean up without conformation - automatic clean up with conformation (default setting) - manual clean up - hide missing files - indicate missing files with that options there shouldn't be any complain any more.
any chance that this feature will be implemented in Digikam 6.0
Comment on attachment 110257 [details] corresponding mailing list discussion http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/All-albums-are-removed-if-there-is-a-network-disconnection-td4704993i20.html
Me too would like the possibility for choosing as stefan.mueller proposed.