Is it possible to store the song library on Dropbox?

boydwgrossii · December 2017

I want to put the library for OpenLP on our church's Dropbox folder. Is it possible for me to put the song library in Dropbox to where someone else can add a song to it and it will update for anyone using OpenLP with permissions to that folder?

witterholt · December 2017

I would not recommend it...

boydwgrossii · December 2017

What would you recommend instead? I use my laptop to update the song library as needed and then I send it to the service to the person who runs the projector. I thought a more streamlined way like that would be nice, but I wasn't sure.

witterholt · December 2017

When I speak for myself: our music team e-mails the songs / lyrics to us. And we check if the lyrics conforms to the lyrics in OpenLP. When not or when a song is missing we change or add it.

simondgoodfellow · January 2018

Two computers accessing the same database files, not a good ides, especially with the added double sync by dropbox in the way. Add to that difficulties with display being different sizes and fonts being available on both system.

We put teamviewer on the OpenLP computer which means the service can be setup and tested using the remote desktop anywhere on the internet. Typically this is from home, but I have set it up and tested a service 6,000kms away, including videos.

raoul · January 2018

We don't recommend putting your data folder into Dropbox (or another file-synchronising service), as you will eventually encounter conflicts and corrupt files.

mhalbrook · January 2018

We use Drive for that, and it works, but as said above, it's not ideal. I need to do some major cleaning on the database and work out a new workflow, the person that does most of the work is not tech savvy. That's something I wish there was better support for, but it'd probably require using MySQL/MariaDB rather than SQL Lite, and that means more technical and difficult for the average user.

milon · January 2018

I'd recommend a good old USB drive to copy the file from the source PC to the target. That should be easy enough to teach non-savy users how to do, I think.

FYI, I've actually heard of Dropbox issues that resulted in all records being deleted. It's okay for a single-person backup, but not ideal when more than one user/computer is involved.

RevPaulWebb · January 2018

I have been using megasync and last week my 'live' laptop messed up the song database and then synced it. fortunately mega has versioning and I was able to get the previous version back.

what about using batch files or something to copy to and from the cloud directory? surely syncing a 'prep' and 'live' machine shouldn't be that difficult without resorting to physical media which could transport viruses or malware?

milon · January 2018

Cloud isn't any more secure than physical media. I would expect it to be less secure, honestly. But you could do it...

mhalbrook · February 2018

Just sync the service files using DropBox/Drive/Etc. OpenLP can be set up to add new songs from a service file.

johnwry · February 2018

We've sharing the data folder over dropbox. Several people share it and it has worked ok for us. We just have to allow time for dropbox to be updated (slow internet). If you do this, make sure you do backups (on a local computer) and keep it real close by, we've had a couple of times where we've had to replenish the song list when someone accidentally installed their new openlp and erased the data folder in dropbox.

raoul · February 2018

Let me just officially state that OpenLP does not support using Dropbox for sharing your data files (not service files). This means that if you lose your song database, you can't come to us to get it recovered.

Let me just clarify that I'm not trying to be nasty, as a small group of volunteers we have to draw the line somewhere for what things we'll help folks with, otherwise we'll end up helping everyone and not developing new features or fixing bugs.

scsmith · December 2018

I have successfully used Dropbox to sync the OpenLP/data folder between PCs. The only thing you need to be aware of is that some components, e.g. the images, store a path to the file in the (SQlite) database, so if you sync with Dropbox to another PC with a different username, the links will be broken. To address this, configure Dropbox to use the same non-username based path, e.g. "C:\Dropbox" on all PCs you want to sync.

sirhcllenrad · December 2018

I know it's not officially supported, but running OpenLP as a portable app in our Dropbox has worked beautifully for us, meaning that people at home can access not just the library but the settings and themes as well. We've been running on Dropbox for three years now (initially just syncing the OpenLP data folder, but for the last year with the portable app) with no issues around database corruption or syncing problems.

Is it possible to store the song library on Dropbox?

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