":ComicRackInfo" files left

[gviscardi]

Are the :ComicRackInfo files that CR makes supposed to be deleted automatically? Or are they needed for the Library functions or something else? If I delete them I do not notice any sort of behavior change in the program. They seem to be made when using the comicvine scraper, but I am not positive.

[maforget]

I am unsure what you are talking because there are no such file created. The info is either stored in the library inside a ComicDb.xml file that contains all the files. That is what the library refers to. Scraper like comicvine do not create files they just tell the program what the metadata is, then it's up to you in the program how you want to store this data. Only inside the database or also inside the files.

You can add the metadata to the files themselves in CBZ files, it doesn't affect the library at all, it's just a way to store the metadata inside the CBZ file so if you either share the files or lose access the your DB, moved them etc then "most" of the data is embed in the file. When first reading files the program will read that, but once in the library it's only the library that matters. So the option to embed is totally optional and doesn't create extra files.

You can have sidecar files next to the library that the program will read, it can be useful for unsupported types like PDFs. Like if a comic is called Detective Comics (2016) #1103.cbz, you can have a Detective Comics (2016) #1103.cbz.xml or Detective Comics (2016) #1103.xml next to the file and it will use that to read the metadata if unavailable in the file. But these files aren't created automatically. You can create them by creating an Export Books profile that uses the Book Information (*.xml), but it must be done manually.

When you've enabled embedding info it also saves the metadata inside NTFS alternate streams. It doesn't modify the file itself but saves the ComicInfo.xml inside the file system. It is useful to store the metadata for filetypes that don't support embedding like PDF, CBR, etc. I believe these are what you are seeing. The clue that tells me this is :ComicRackInfo, this is how alternate streams store the data. You are probably using some kind of NAS that doesn't understands these alternate streams and instead creates actual files. That creation is only done when you manually (or automatically depending on your config) update the book file (orange star).

You can disable the NTFS Reading/Writing by adding DisableNTFS = true inside the ComicRack.ini file. See this wiki page about that. Also the page about ComicRack.ini and how to use it.

[gviscardi]

Wow, thank you! I've been scouring all the information I could find, found out about the Stream files, but couldn't figure out how they operated within CR. Yes, I have the files stored on a NFS share (Debian host) so they were making me wonder. I appreciate the detailed information as well as the solution and links to further reading.

You are a rockstar my friend, thank you for everything you are doing!!