Database engine and index corruption

[cboulanger]

Hello,

this is meant mainly as a technical question. I have a database with > 6000 records and frequently I have to rebuild it. I assume you use a third-party database engine. For my own development, I use MySql and have never ever encountered database corruption at all. Why, then, these problems with Bookend's database engine? Is it that MySql repairs in the background, so I never get to see the problems? Or is it Bookend's enginge technically inferior to what open source database engine offer in terms of stability? It would be really nice not to have to rebuild so often.

Best,
Christian

[Jon]

Bookends uses Valentina, which is vastly superior to mySQL in terms of speed. It's the reason that Live Search can do nearly instantaneous full-text searches in very large databases. As for rebuilding, you shouldn't need to do that often at all (note that Bookends checks for even tiny issues that really don't affect you or performance, but alerts you to them as a preventative measure). One thing you can do for 6000 refs is increase the database cache (say, to 14 MB -- no more, or you'll just increase launch times with no benefit). Another is do a Repair. There are some issues a Repair fixes that a Rebuild does not (and vice versa). So if a Rebuild doesn't completely fix something you'll get repeated warnings. Finally, if you continue to see warnings, please contact me directly so we can try to figure out what operations you are doing that might be causing a problem.

Jon
Sonny Software

[wtagg]

I don't want to hijack this discussion but I feel like I should mention my experience also. My database of ~1200 entries is also frequently prompted to rebuild or repair. Until recently, I was syncing my BE database across two computers using a portable HDD. After any significant work where I added new entries that contained keywords, edited keywords, or added notes I ran into errors. But these errors often didn't show up until I synchronized the database back to the source. I understand that verify does not catch every issue. I'm also aware of the need to repair/rebuild both databases if sync is being used. But I'm still surprised at how often this has happened lately.

Because I don't understand the underlying data structure it's very difficult for me to even guess as to what the cause might be. However, I'm hoping to avoid future problems by ending my reliance upon BE syncing altogether. If the frequent problems are being caused by some mismatch/confusion during syncing maybe this will keep my BE database a little more stable...this is my hope at least.

And Jon, I really appreciate the amount of time you've worked with me a lot over the past few weeks on this issue.

Sincerely,

Will

[cboulanger]

Hi Jon,

thanks for your answer. Yes, you're right that the database is extremely fast. I'll try to increase the cache and see what happens.

Christian