Bruji

I just opened DVDpedia--no recent software or hardware updates--and my database file said I had zero movies entered (it should say 3230). My Collections all had the right numbers by them in the left-hand navigation, but when I clicked on a Collection, the number immediately went to zero and also appeared to be empty. I found my Database.dvdpd file, and its size was 28 MB, so I suspect the data is still in there, it just isn't showing. Fortunately, I use Time Machine backups, so I just restored the version I was using last night, and all seems to be restored properly. I wanted to relay this story and see if you can think of a reason this happened and what I might do to avoid the sheer terror of seeing over 8 years of data entry seemingly vanish in an instant.

It's probably relevant to mention that my default location for my CDpedia and DVDpedia collections is on my iCloud Drive, which is most convenient for me because I work on two different machines (never with the same database open on both machines simultaneously).

Thanks for helping me figure out what happened and how to keep it from happening again.
Best,
-Brad

Hi Brad,

Thank you for the detailed description. First time hearing about this issue. The fact that it loaded, the collections on the left hand side with their numbers, means it was able to read the file and open it as a database. Then going blank sounds as if the file data was disappearing from it when it went to query it. So it does sound like an iCloud related issue. It could be that iCloud was doing some kind of syncing still and hence the file was not readable, a restart might have fixed it? Do let me know if it happens again, so I can be aware of any iCloud limitations.

As for 8 years of data, nobody who has more than 10 movies in DVDpedia should be going around without a backup of Database.dvdpd or in fact the entire folder as TimeMachine is doing. Do make sure to have an offsite backup as well, if iCloud goes poof, you want a secondary location.