Sharing a catalog between desktop and laptop with different drive letters-- how?

[Jim S.]

I want to use Dropbox to sync a catalog between my desktop and my laptop.

On the desktop, I created a folder D:\dropbox\SPORTS

Inside of that are two folders, D:\dropbox\SPORTS\Images and D:\dropbox\SPORTS\Catalog, holding the obvious.

The laptop only has a C: drive, so it has the identical path, but with a different drive letter.

I create the catalog on the desktop, let the thumbnails generate, close Photo Mechanic, and let Dropbox do it's thing.

Then I go to the laptop and use Locate Existing catalog to find it. The catalog imports correctly and is searchable, but all the original files are showing as offline.

I have tried using Manage Shared Folders to indicate that the desktop files are on D, and the laptop files on C, but it appears to make no difference.

What do I need to do differently to get this to work?

Using Photo Mechanic Plus 6.0 build 7102 on Windows 11. Both machines have the same version and the OSes are both up to date.

[ahoward]

Catalogs are not really designed to be shared between two computers via a file syncing service. In my experience, doing so will lead to the catalog often requiring reintegration, or having issue when one computer tries to close the catalog that another computer has open.

[Jim S.]

I'm aware of the issues, and feel that I can effectively mitigate the risk by ensuring that only one copy is open at a time, and not starting the program until everything is synced.

I still would like to know how to make it work.

[ahoward]

We do not have any workarounds for having a catalog sync through Dropbox.

[Jim S.]

What do you support for sharing the same catalog between two computers, and how do I deal with the images being located on different drive paths?

[ahoward]

Sorry, I meant to reply to this the other day, but we do not support sharing a single catalog between two computers at this time.

[Jim S.]

Then perhaps take edit/take down these articles, as I've now lost a week believing that there was a way to make this work:

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001159649-sharing-a-catalog-with-other-users -- "You can, however, use your catalog on multiple computers by storing it on a removable or networked drive."

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001168255

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001157499