Rebuilding the index
A library's index is one file in its folder, and nearly everything you decided is also written beside each photograph. Rebuilding the index reads the folder back and writes the index afresh. This page is for the day a library looks wrong and you want it put right from what is on disk.
What the index is
The index is library.sqlite3 in the library's folder. It is the fast path: what the app queries to draw the strip, count the pass and find a frame. Nearly every fact you put into the shoot is also written into an XMP file beside the photograph it belongs to — the Take, Hold or Reject decision, the rating, the colour label, keywords and caption, the note on a decision and its reasons, and every develop setting. So losing the index does not lose the cull, and the folder is what a rebuild reads from.
The one mark not written there is the favourite. Vixlo keeps favourites in the index alone, so a rebuild cannot bring them back.
When to rebuild
Rebuild when a library's index seems wrong: decisions or adjustments you made are not showing, or the library folder was restored from a backup or copied from another disk. Rebuild too when photographs copied by an import are in the library's Originals folder but not on the cull page, because the import's sheet was closed with Close before Continue to culling (Closing the sheet before the end). You do not need to when the index file is missing altogether: Vixlo rebuilds it on its own when you open the library, as long as the folder still has its Originals folder. The opening waits for the rebuild, with nothing on screen to say so, and the notice that tells you it happened waits on the launch screen until you close the library. A library that will not open says what to expect, and what happens when Originals is missing too.
Where
The library must be closed, so the control lives on the launch screen. In the library's row, open More and choose Rebuild the index….
The three Earlier libraries that came with Vixlo have no More menu: their photographs were never imported into a folder of their own, so there is nothing to rebuild from, and their row offers Import this library… instead. See Earlier libraries that will not open or develop.
The sheet
The sheet is titled Rebuild the index? with the library's name under it, and makes two statements before asking:
- Every decision, rating, colour label and adjustment is kept — they live in an XMP file beside each photograph, and the index is rebuilt from them.
- Undo history does not survive a rebuild — the journal of what you did is the one thing that lives only in the index. The current index is kept as a backup file beside the new one; nothing is deleted.
The sheet does not mention favourites, and they are not kept: see What comes back, and what does not.
Press Rebuild the index to go ahead, or Cancel. While it runs the sheet names each stage — Keeping the old index as a backup…, Reading the photographs…, Reading each frame's decisions and adjustments… with a count, Recomputing file identity… — and says The library stays closed until this finishes. A run cannot be stopped partway.
When it is done the sheet reports what it read, counted from the folder: so many photographs, so many decisions, ratings, labels and sets of adjustments read back from the folder; then The previous index is kept at the backup file's name; then Undo history starts empty. Press Done and open the library.
What comes back, and what does not
| Restored from the folder | Not restored |
|---|---|
| every photograph | undo and redo — they start empty |
| the Take, Hold or Reject decision | the pass you had open — a new pass starts |
| the rating and the colour label | favourites — no frame is a favourite afterwards |
| every develop setting | |
| keywords and the caption | |
| the note on a decision and its reasons |
A rebuild does not bring favourites back, and the sheet does not say so: it says every decision, rating, colour label and adjustment is kept, and mentions no loss of favourites. If your favourites matter, mark those frames another way before you rebuild — a colour label, say, which does come back.
The index can be rebuilt says what a rebuild does to the names and corrections in People.
A frame nobody decided, rated, labelled, captioned or developed has no XMP file; it comes back undecided and unrated, as it was — except that, like every frame, it is no longer a favourite.
The backup file
The old index is moved aside, never deleted: it becomes library.sqlite3.backup- followed by the date and time, next to the new one. A second rebuild leaves a second backup rather than writing over the first. Vixlo never removes them; when you are sure the rebuilt library is right, you can delete them in the Finder.
When it refuses
Each refusal is a sentence on the sheet, followed by Nothing was changed.:
- No Originals folder at the path , so there is nothing to rebuild the index from. The folder is not a Vixlo library, or its
Originalsfolder has been moved. - The current index could not be kept as a backup, so nothing was changed: and the reason. Vixlo will not replace an index it could not first preserve.