Self hosting on Ubuntu. 1.5.6 version.
Using symlinks to point to photo libraries.

When I click on refresh metadata, I get:
metadata refresh is incomplete
the process should continue automatically, if not press continue.

It sits there spinning. if I click continue, it does not do anything.

Nothing in ZP logs

any thoughts?

Sorry, no, not without anything in any log. Perhaps symlinks are the issue. Try an album without using them. Or you have too many albums. So you can try refreshing on a specific album to see if that works.

Hmmm.... symlinks vs direct...

I have 20 years of photos... while I am not planning to put all on web, I have quite a number that I want to share with family. My concern is I have a file/folder infrastructure in place. In order to do this without symlink, I basically have to create another copy of the files I want to share. I would prefer not to do that if I don't have to

What is the best practice for Zenphoto on this?

What do I do if a photo is deleted from master store or changed, cropped, etc. If I recopy to Zenphoto store, will that mess things up?

By the way... thanks kindly for the help!!

Symlinks are "below" the level that Zenphoto operates--that is they are a feature of your server. So long as the server works properly they should be fine for Zenphoto.

Is there any log i can look at tbat will tell me why the refresh is aborting?

You can enable various debug modes. You have to do this manually and "hack" the /zp-core/global-definitions.php file currently. It will not always only output "errors" but also some general info, so don't be confused. I am not sure off hand if this will cover this though.

One thing: The redirecty on the page reload on refreshing is done via a ``call. If this is the case the database refresh on the overview page would also not work.

not really seeing anything yet that points to anything..

• message is:
  refresh database
  database refresh is incomplete
  this process should continue automatically, if not press
  Continue!

I see the tab working (spins, the stops, then spins, etc)
Am I simply not giving it enough time?

The loading of the next page is done via a meta refresh. Do you perhaps have any browser extension interfering here? Have you tried another browser? Is there anything in browser log/console perhaps in case you haven't looked there?

Does pressing Continue work? Or does that not work as well?

Of course if you have a large database because you have thousands of images and albums that will take some time. THe database refresh scanes the filesystem to see if there are outdated entries of non existing albums or images stored.

Btw, the spinning is just a placeholder gif and itself does not indicate much.

ok.... I let it run until it completed... it went back to the overview tab... no errors on screen,.

in cat the log, i did not see anything that said error. It took maybe 5 min overall.

is it just that I need to be patient?

3314 images.

Yes, you need to be patient. It takes a while to fully complete everything and will need several page reloads as it processes only a certain amount of albums at the time to not overload. This is one of the more server power consuming tasks. When it completes it returns to the overview itself.

What the database refresh does also happens if you visit album pages on the backend or frontend. On every visit Zenphoot matches the database with the file system of an album. That way you can upload via FTP as well.

OK... so not broken

I am not patient

I see miley: