I thought I would vent my frustration here in the hope of some workable solutions.
What is up with EP corrupting databases and needing to reformat the drive? Here is my latest scenario…yes I have had this many times now and thought I had created the workflows to prevent.
I have not linked my Prime 4 with internal 1TB SSD (Formatted to EXFAT) to my computer for a while. It has been playing fine (Still does in fact). Today I wanted to load up a few crates that I have been working on. Started EP analysed the Serato Cretes and as this was happening I get the message that the Prime 4 Drive is corrupt and needs rebuilding…NO WAY I thought. I have not ejected incorrectly and only recently rebuilt after the last time (Yes I now have a second copy of the database on my PC for safety).
I ejected the drive and the P4 loaded back up with the database…working and playing music???
I ran Chkdsk and it did find a couple of errors and said it fixed them. I went back into EP. Like other times it was fine for a bit and then…“Your database is corrupt and needs rebuilding or formatting”. WHY???
More to the point why is it so easy for this to happen? This is a mission critical element and should be prioritized to make as robust as possible so we can rely on it.
I have read as many posts on this as I can handle so clearly is an issue for many…WHY? The normal response seems to be “yes the drive may look idle but may be caching and this caused the error” (or similar) - Well I did not eject improperly and it was idle…it just reported it corrupt?
I love my P4 and wanted the standalone capability, but am now seriously thinking I should have stuck with Serato (which I also love) as I have not ever had these errors and is far more user friendly in library management…not to mention beat grid management and cue imports from MIK etc.
Dennon seriously need to step up and offer endorsed workflow solutions and recovery options built in. I have a full time job and this is a hobby and side hustle…But if it were my bread and butter I don’t think I could trust it. I woudl appreciate some comments on this as I know I am not alone and frankly the 2 hours it will take to format and rebuild is just not on - and its estimated 2 hours as I got burnt already and have another copy…the first time took me many more hours.
Anyhow, rant over and I look forward to the replies and suggestions so we can expand on this together and get some real workable solutions that are practical in the field as I have NEVER experienced such corruption of drives in all my years of PC ownership (which are many).
If you vote for it now, denon might include it in firmware in 2023. It’s too late for me, I’ve sold off both my prime SC5000s and prime x1800. I lost trust in the Coming Soon some time ago and More recently I’ve lost trust in the Just Around The Corner timescale too. It’s like the mate you leant half a’onths wages to, 3 years ago and every week he says he’ll definitely pay you back in a month. Three years on you just give up totally on ever seeing a buck of it ever again and you just stop asking cos you know what they’re going to say.
I’ve not suffered from a corrupt database and that’s with over 100 paid gigs every year and I owned primes for 3 years. Some defining points or maybe completely nothing to do with its:
I didn’t use many crates - I had a massive crate (135 thousand tracks) called main library, then I had monthly top up crates called “April 2020” or “May 2020” and so on.
I didn’t use playlists - I just thought about what I wanted to play , live on the night
I didn’t fudge about with my files. Any music I added went into new crates (“May 2020”) I never added new songs to old crates. Once a file or folder was saved in a particular place, it stayed forever in that particular place. I didn’t let my Prime drives get touched by any other DJ software or editor software, only windows and engine prime
I never used shop bought external hard drives - I bought external casings and choose an internal hard drive carefully - ones with huge write caches specifically.
I set windows settings for the external drive to be “Safe but slow” rather than “Faster but you damn well better remember to eject usb safely or your data is history” mode
I don’t know if any of the above M.O. helped avoid corrupt database messages or not.
In the same way they haven’t addressed the other issues. The addressing solution will be coming soon and just around the corner - forever. It’s Denons seamless loop of side-stepping the answers. Which is why I sold my prime set up. Trust lost
I must say, I’ve never had a corrupt Engine Prime database. SQLlite may not be very robust, but that’s my personal take on this.
And yes, it can be very frustrating, of course. You could try a repair mentioned in another topic and see if that gives you most of the data back. But a 3-2-1 backup method is key in any computer related situations.
I agree. So many parameters. Perhaps adding: Import from DJ-app x-y-z etc.
I think you’re on the right track stating SC5000 and external SSD gives the least problems.
However, I’ve had the Prime4 here and used it with an internal Samsung SSD without issues. Same SSD now testing in a Prime2. No issues putting it through its paces.
The most common causes of corrupt databases is:
removing a drive while it’s not ejected/unmounted
now we all know that right?
What most don’t realize is:
when you switch your Prime 4 from computer connected to stand alone mode, you are effectively disconnecting the drive. Without a proper eject in EP and/or unmount from the desktop this will lead to database corruption.
I’ve seen almost all Prime 4 users do this when I assisted them over TeamViewer, so safe to say this is from my experience the number 1 cause of database corruption.
The same thing for when you Power down any Prime gear (SC5000/Prime4 etc) eject the drive (even the internal drive!) before you power down. Better to be safe than sorry.
I’m on SC5000 for more then 3 years now. Always had 2Tb drives connected to my Primes (current collection almost 110K of tracks) and I’ve yet have to experience my first database corruption. I agree Denon DJ should build in some safeguards, but it’s easily avoidable.
I’ll show in my next Ask Me Anything stream how you can simply backup your Prime databases and restore them.
oh I almost forgot, my tools automatically maintain 4 level of backups of the EP databases.
I wonder if the sc6000 may have the same issue SSD’s are not cheap and a 1tb is the better part of £100, and to buy that only for it to be problematic would be very frustrating. The idea of having built in storage is great but the kinks need addressing.
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