If you store thumbnails as files (an option given to you when you first create your database as a workaround for the 2.0 gigabyte limit) you should be aware of the following, removing unwanted thumbnails from the database dose not remove the locally stored thumbnails you have saved as files, whilst individually these files are very small (typically 7KB) collectively they can soon take up several gigabytes of space and their shear numbers make for a large and inefficient Master Boot Record or FAT index on your hard drive. If you store your database on a flash drive you will eventually need to buy a bigger drive to accommodate what are mostly redundant thumbnail files.
Compacting the database removes the wasted space from within the database but this also does nothing to remove the unwanted thumbnails from the local cache. There does not seem to be anyway of "cleaning" the local cache from within thumbsplus. The only option seems to be to create a new database and re-scan your thumbnails from new but if like me you have invested a lot of time creating and managing galleries then this solution is not an option.
After creating some test databases and experimenting I found that it is safe to delete (or rename) the locally stored cache that your thumbnails are stored in and then click the "Remake Thumbnails" command and watch as your thumbnail folders and galleries are repopulated. "At least there is a workaround for cleaning up the local cache" I thought. WRONG, guess what? The "Remake Thumbnails" command creates internally stored thumbnails as well as external ones. So if you stored your thumbnails as files to workaround the 2 gig limit but you want to clean this cache up, the only solution is to delete the cache and remake thumbnails but then you'll get hit by the 2 gig limit that you've tried so hard to avoid.
I have tested this with JET and SQL database settings, each time Remake Thumbnails ends with a database that is more or less identical in size to the same database set to store thumbnails internally. This problem seems to be linked with the local cache not being present when the database opens, even though a new cache is created when Remaking Thumbnails these thumbnails appear to be copied internally as well.
Please can someone at Cerious address this issue. I've tried just about everything I can think of to clean the local cache or preserve galleries in a new database but galleries can't be backed up or transferred, the database backup command results in corrupted 7z files, the restore database command does nothing, export to text hangs the process.
So here is my current wish list for Santa:
1, The remove thumbnail command also removes them from the local cache
2, A remove orphans from local cache command allows thumbnails no longer linked to the database table to be removed from the local cache
3, Galleries can be backed up and transferred between databases
4, The backup command actually works
5, The restore command actually works
6, The help commands actually work
7, Thumbnails linked to galleries have their own decorations (reported case 1233781)
8, Find works on subtrees that have an apostrophe in their name (reported case 1236060)
9, Removing thumbnails takes less time than creating them (like it did in V7)
10, I move everything over to LightRoom and take reliability over functionality.
Seriously guys, please give us a final version that is useable in the long term. I have a perpetual license for Tplus and I'm beginning to regret that decision!
