RECONCILING THE TWO DATABASES

"Orphaned" records
Since the user database allows you to store custom and specific data for any given audio file, it links this custom information to the corresponding filename in the system inventory. The user database is thusly “tied” to the system inventory via the full path names of the audio files.

If in the course of digital events an audio file somewhere on your system has been deleted, renamed or moved, this change will show up when you perform an inventory update (done by clicking the “Update” button while in the System Inventory view).

If you had custom information in the user database for this file, the link to the system inventory is now broken; the file name that the user database record was tied to in the inventory no longer exists in the inventory. This creates what is called an “orphaned” record in the user database; i.e. a user record that no longer links to a valid filename in the inventory.

Inventory updates and reconciliation
To guard against permanent orphaning of any user records, every time Harbor scans your system and updates the inventory database it also checks to see if any changes to the system inventory have created any orphans in the user database. This procedure is called “reconciling the databases”. 

If no orphaned user records are found, the reconciliation is completed silently and invisibly to the user.

If, however, any orphaned records are found, Harbor will pop up a warning message to you stating how many orphans it has found, and asking you if you wish to correct them now.  

This message gives you a choice whether to reconcile the orphaned record(s) immediately or to wait until later to perform the reconciliation. In most cases it would probably be a good idea to immediately reconcile all orphaned records, but it might be that you have more important priorities right at the moment.

If you choose to wait on the reconciliation, click “No”. Harbor will then give you a quick reminder message that you can go back later to Harbor’s “Tools/Preferences” screen and perform the reconciliation from there.

The Reconcile Database tool
Whether opening it from an inventory update warning or from the Tools/Preferences menu, the Reconcile Database tool looks and operates the same.

The left side of this tool contains information regarding any and all orphaned records found in your user database. The right side contains likely “parents” from the inventory database with which the orphans may be reconciled. Between these two displays is the control panel that will make the reconciliation of your databases happen.

The "Orphan Records" display
When you open the Reconcile Database tool, the original file path/names for all currently orphaned user database records are listed in the top section of the “Orphan Records” display.

Left-clicking your mouse on any file in this orphan list will highlight that clicked orphan and display the entire contents of its user database record in the bottom “Record Detail” section of this display.

The “Orphan Records” display therefore shows exactly which records have been orphaned, which audio file they used to be linked to, and what actual user data has been orphaned.

The "Potential Matches" display
When you click on one of the orphaned files on the “Orphan Display”, Harbor not only shows the complete user record in the Record Detail, but it also performs a special scan of your current system inventory, looking for the likely parent of the orphan. Harbor then displays what it considers to be the best candidates in the right-side display called “Potential Matches”.

This is a powerful feature that usually makes the whole reconciliation process a painless no-brainer. If an orphan has been created simply because the original audio file was moved or renamed, chances are excellent that Harbor will find the moved or renamed file and display it as a “Potential Match”. Then it is a simple mouse click to reconcile the orphan with the new file.

The Control Panel
Anything you need to do with the Reconcile Database tool can be done with a single click of one of the three buttons clustered in the center:

RE-LINK – Re-links (reconciles) the highlighted orphan file on the left with the highlighted match on the right.

DELETE ORPHAN – Deletes the highlighted orphan file record from the user database.

  
MANUAL BROWSE – Displays a standard Windows file dialog box allowing you to search manually for an audio file to which the highlighted orphaned file should be reconciled.

Each of these buttons is individually enabled only when it is valid to be so.  For example, the “Re-Link” button is only enabled when both an orphan and a match are highlighted, since both are needed for a re-link to take place.

Just above the buttons is a status indicator “lamp” that will display the status of the reconcile tool while it is performing a particular task.

Performing the reconciliation   
To reconcile an orphaned record, left-click on it in the “Orphan Records” display to highlight it. This will display the data from the orphan in the Record Detail display, and it will cause Harbor to search for and display any potential matches from the current inventory in the Potential Matches display.

If there are any potential matches displayed, and one of them is the file to which you want to re-link the orphaned record, then left-click on that match to highlight it and click the “Re-link” button. This will reconcile the orphaned record to the new file in the system inventory, thus removing that orphan from the orphan list.

If none of the listed potential matches looks like the right file, or if Harbor was unable to find any potential matches automatically, you can click on the “Manual Browse” button to pull up a standard Windows file dialog box. This will allow you to browse your system manually to look for an audio file to re-link the orphan to. Once you find the right file, selecting that file will reconcile the orphan to it, thus removing that orphan from the orphan list.

If the highlighted orphan simply cannot be re-linked – usually when the audio file it referenced has been deleted from your system – then click the “Delete Orphan” button to remove the orphaned record from the user database (make sure you have the right orphan record highlighted first!)

Automatically reconciling similar orphans  
Orphaned data files are often the effect of changes made to your system configuration or file structure. Perhaps you decided to move all the audio files located in C:\Music to a new folder called C:\Audio\Music. Or maybe you have added a new hard drive to your system and the hard drive that was the D: drive is now the E: drive, changing the drive letter in the path of all audio files on that drive.

For these reasons, when an orphan is reconciled with one of the files in the Potential Matches list, Harbor instantly analyzes the relationship between the file name of the orphan and the name of the new parent. It is looks for a pattern in the name change that may identify these types of changes that could have caused other orphans in the list.

If Harbor recognizes such a possibility when you reconcile a file, it will pop up a message identifying the potential pattern, and ask you if you want to reconcile all other orphans and potential matches with the same pattern change. Using one of the examples above, if Harbor recognizes that the reconciled file was moved from C:\Music to C:\Audio\Music, it will ask you if you want to similarly reconcile any other orphans that were in C:\Music with potential matches in C:\Audio\Music.

If you answer “Yes” to that message, Harbor will automatically reconcile all such orphaned files in one shot, rather than your having to manually reconcile each one individually.

If you answer “No”, Harbor will not automatically reconcile those files, leaving you to continue in Harbor as you wish.

Closing the Reconcile Database tool
The “Close” button at the bottom of the control panel closes the Reconcile Database tool altogether.

If there are still orphaned records remaining in the user database when you close the tool, Harbor will warn you that there are still orphans, and ask you if your really want to close the tool.

This is only a reminder; closing the Reconcile Database while orphans still exist has no deleterious effect. You can go back and re-open the tool and continue reconciliation at any time by clicking the “Reconcile Database” button on Harbor's Tools/Preferences menu.