# Many "old" org-roam files invisible upon deletion and re-build of org-roam.db **URL:** \ **Category:** Troubleshooting\ **Created:** [November 29, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012 "2020-11-29T16:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kavasmlikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kavasmlikon](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/kavasmlikon)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/1 "2020-11-29T16:49:03Z")
first of all, thanks for this wonderful piece of software. I have 42 notes in my org-roam-directory. When I delete my org-roam.db and start emacs again (or run `org-roam-db-build-cache` for that matter) I would expect all those 42 notes to re-appear in roam. However, only 7 of the 42 files appear in the mini-buffer when I run `org-roam-find-file` or `org-roam-insert`. I tried: - de-activating helm in my init.el, but makes no difference, so I guess it has nothing to do with the completion system? - opening, editing and saving one of the older files manually =\> makes the respective file re-appear in org-roam. However, after deleting and re-building the org-roam.db, again only the same 7 files are visible in org-roam. interestingly - unlike editing - touching a file (via `$ touch filename.org`) makes no difference to its visibility in org-roam this issue seems to be related to the one described [here](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/have-to-edit-old-notes-for-them-to-be-visible-to-org-roam-again/643). any help/tips are much appreciated! – Emacs (C-h v emacs-version): v26.3 Org-roam from MELPA ---
**Author:** ![doubleloop](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/org-roam.discourse.group/doubleloop/32/99_2.png) [@doubleloop](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/doubleloop)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/2 "2020-11-29T17:37:05Z")
What’s the value of `C-h v org-roam-db-location`? I had a problem of ‘missing’ files in the DB recently, and it was because I was pointing at the wrong DB due to a misconfiguration. I found looking in org-roam.db itself with sqlite was useful when figuring this out. ---
**Author:** ![kavasmlikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kavasmlikon](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/kavasmlikon)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/3 "2020-11-29T17:54:27Z")
the value of `C-h v org-roam-db-location` is exactly as set in my init.el, i.e `(setq org-roam-db-location "/home/path/to/.../org_roam/org-roam.db")` however, even if I delete this line and let org-roam use the default org-roam-db-location `~/.emacs.d/org-roam.db` the same issue persists. i.e. when deleting and re-building the db, still only the same 7 files are visible in org-roam. ---
**Author:** ![kavasmlikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kavasmlikon](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/kavasmlikon)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/4 "2020-11-29T17:56:26Z")
for what it’s worth: as I just realised, when starting emacs for the first time after having deleted org-roam.db, the following user-error appears in the mini-buffer: ``` (org-roam) Processed 0/42 modified files... (org-roam) Processed 1/42 modified files... (org-roam) Processed 2/42 modified files... (org-roam) Processed 3/42 modified files... (org-roam) Processed 4/42 modified files... (org-roam) Processed 5/42 modified files... (org-roam) Processed 6/42 modified files... user-error: Org property #+roam_key cannot be empty ``` ---
**Author:** ![kavasmlikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kavasmlikon](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/kavasmlikon)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 6:16pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/5 "2020-11-29T18:16:12Z")
okay, it turns out I had a few files in which I had set a `#+roam_key:` property in the heading but left it empty. deleting `#+roam_key:` from those files or adding a link so the property wouldn’t be empty fixed the issue. deleted db once more and restarted emacs =\> all files in `org-roam-directory` are now visible in org-roam. thanks for triggering me onto this further investigation @doubleloop 😉 ---
**Author:** ![japhir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@japhir](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/japhir)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/6 "2020-12-04T12:18:55Z")
just wanted to chime in that the trick of just deleting the db file and restarting emacs also worked for me. I’ve had some issues because I had moved my db and it was very frustrating to find nothing wrong with my files (with C-u M-x org-roam-doctor) and still have some files not show up in completion. The function org-roam-db-build-cache didn’t fix this issue, what command would have? Perhaps org-roam-db-clear? Is fixing these sorts of issues documented anywhere that I missed? ---
**Author:** ![kavasmlikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kavasmlikon](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/kavasmlikon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 7:51pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/7 "2020-12-04T19:51:33Z")
simply deleting the db and restarting did not solve the issue for me - after every restart of emacs the following error would appear in the mini-buffer: ```auto user-error: Org property #+roam_key cannot be empty ``` the problem was that I had a few files in my org-roam-directory which had the `#+roam_key: ` mentioned in the headline, but no value was specified. as soon as I entered a value for each `#+roam_key:`, e.g. `#+roam_key: http://type-any-url-in-here.com` the error disappeared. so it turns out org-roam cannot start properly without `#+roam_key:` being properly specified in each file in org-roam-directory. however, org-roam-doctor does not pick up wrong/incomplete `#+roam_key:` specifications. if I understood the purpose of org-roam-doctor correctly it actually should, no? ---
**Author:** ![kavasmlikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b782af/32.png) [@kavasmlikon](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/kavasmlikon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 7:53pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/8 "2020-12-04T19:53:33Z")
btw. a file without any mention of the `#+roam_key:` label, does not produce any error… ---
**Author:** ![doubleloop](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/org-roam.discourse.group/doubleloop/32/99_2.png) [@doubleloop](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/doubleloop)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2020, 7:46am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/many-old-org-roam-files-invisible-upon-deletion-and-re-build-of-org-roam-db/1012/9 "2020-12-05T07:46:44Z")
> [@japhir](#): > > The function org-roam-db-build-cache didn’t fix this issue, what command would have? Perhaps org-roam-db-clear? I believe calling `org-roam-db-build-cache` with an argument will delete the DB file and rebuild it. (Without an argument, it will index new/modified files). `org-roam-db-clear` will empty the DB without actually deleting the file.