Access to non-image file types

[stevehughes]

I've setup my daminion server to store all the media on a local disk, and I've then shared the folder as a read only network share. The idea of this was to give hopefully the best of both worlds - all assets controlled solely through daminion, but also accessible from Macs etc without the daminion client.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't work quite as well as I thought it would. If a daminion client user tries to open a MOV or other non-image file he gets an error that the file is on local storage and therefore can't be opened.

 

I had expected that the client would download the file from the server and then open it, regardless of file type. Sure it would be more efficient opening a large movie file from the file share, but I thought it would at least work through the daminion client.

 

How about a feature suggestion? What if the server added some extra support for this specific configuration? What if, as well as specifying the local storage folder, the server admin could specify a network share path to the same folder. Then perhaps the client could use direct network access, and then also a function like Show in Windows Explorer would do something useful.

 

Regards,

Steve.

[Murat]

Steve, thanks for the suggestion. I can suggest you to import all video, audio and other non-image media formats using the network paths. In this case double clicking on a non-image file in Daminion opens the remote files by an external application without downloading its copy to the client computer.

 

In the early Daminion builds we downloaded non-images files from the local server based folder to the client PC before processing them. But as you noticed it doesn't make sense.

 

If you don't want to re-import your files to Daminion Shared catalog, I can suggest you to use the Folder Re-link feature (available from the context menu in the Folders tree) to change the local path to its network version, for example:

C:\Media\Videos -> \\MediaServer\Videos

[stevehughes]

If I do that then I can open the file at the client, but I lose the ability to perform any management of the file through Daminion (e.g. delete the file or rename it ..... Hmmm how do I do a rename anyway?) unless I give all users write access to the network share. I want to keep the network share as read-only to avoid accidents.

 

One solution would be to have dual paths for the uploaded files, so that the Daminion server can manage the files directly via local storage but a client with read-only access can open the file for viewing via the network share. I'm thinking back in terms of my original suggestion, but there may be other ways to deal with this.

 

Having said that, I just had an idea.... I have found that I can set the Daminion Server's local storage folder to a UNC path. I don't want to play with something that might really mess things up, but what would happen if I set the local storage path to the network share (which is on the same machine) and then run the Daminion Server under an admin-level user account that has full RW access to the share ?

[Murat]

If I do that then I can open the file at the client, but I lose the ability to perform any management of the file through Daminion (e.g. delete the file or rename it ..... Hmmm how do I do a rename anyway?) unless I give all users write access to the network share. I want to keep the network share as read-only to avoid accidents.

 

Renaming feature is in our feature plans.

 

Having said that, I just had an idea.... I have found that I can set the Daminion Server's local storage folder to a UNC path. I don't want to play with something that might really mess things up, but what would happen if I set the local storage path to the network share (which is on the same machine) and then run the Daminion Server under an admin-level user account that has full RW access to the share ?

 

You are right and this will be an ideal solution for you:

- Share your local server based folder where you assets will be stored

- Use this shared UNC path as the "Folder to Store Uploaded Files"

- Give the full read/write access to this folder for Daminion Server service user and set read-only access for Everyone.

 

 

Please also note that the local storage path is used only when you selected the UPLOAD option in your Daminion Client Import Window. But your users (with Admin or Editor roles) might also import images from network shares using Add Files option that will import files by preserving their original locations.

[stevehughes]

I tried the 're-link' as you described to re-point the entire collection to the network share. I first gave 'everyone' full access. Shortly into the process it stops with this:

 

ERROR: 25P02: current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of transaction block.

 

38k files in the collection, I'm running build 844.

[Murat]

Steve, thanks for the information about this issue! I've registered it in our bug tracking system (#2726).

 

Seems something is related to a time-out issue due to a long operation. I was able to relink server and local folders with a relatively small number of files, while I received the same error message on the large folder (20k images).

 

As workaround you can re-import your files using network paths or wait till the bug-fix will be ready.

[stevehughes]

Thanks Murat. I was able to workaround the error by relink-ing the files one top-level folder at a time. The maximum in any folder was around 7k files, and that worked OK.

 

Also, the idea of pointing Daminion server's local folder to the network share seems to work a treat, and does exactly what I had been wanting.