Ecoinvent - Cannot import or verify most of my databses + Computer Storage depleted rapidly

Question

Hello, openLCA forum, 

I have trouble important and verifying my ecoinvent 3.5 zolca files with the "Restore Database"option (as that seems to be the correct way to import ecoinvent). 
Basically, the biggest three zolca files (all above 1 GB) apparently cannot be verified as they either 1) result in an error like "Error validating database" or 2) induce the program to crash/become unresponsive (CPU and Memory at 100%, crash usually after a few minutes).

Furthermore, my different import and deletion attempts have seemingly clogged up the physical storage (I got a specific laptop provided by my university for working with ecoinvent). While I found the folder that stored the databses (.../openLCA-data-1.4/databases), deleting the redundant files there did not resolve the issue.
Rather, I now have trouble installing/verifying any of the outstanding databases. Either the import fails outright ("Failed to run import database") or I get a “database reference error” and am referred to the log file which does not contain these new failures in its timeline. It is similar when validating new imports.

Has anyone encountered this problem before and knows how to fix this?

 

My system is as follows:
Windows 10 Education (64-bit) on a ThinkPad Edge,
User Account without Admin Status as it is hosted by my university

 

Best regards and thank you for your help

Comments

Hello,

I am also experiencing the same problem while combining with other parts of ecoinvent V3.10 databases. The smaller databases took really less time to combine but the larger databases are taking more than 7 hours and it has not been imported yet.

I have also experienced the above memory and  crashing problem while importing. But I have deleted all the files once and started downloading everything new. But still it is taking more time to be imported into OpenLCA.  Is this a usual thing?

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normally you do not need to combine, and it is good to restore the LCI (=aggregated) system process database and if needed import the unit process version into it. The system process databases are a few gigabyte in size, so they consume harddisc space. The issue is not the download (if the download was successful of course) but the import / restoring.

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Thank you for the comment. I will try that.

Answer 1

Hi and welcome,

First, validating a database checks all links and objects with their connections and always needs resources from the computer, and if e.g. there is almost no discspace left this is difficult. Before we put the database files up for distribution we validate them, so it is not needed to do this on your end as well (but you can, of course).

Then,

deleting the redundant files there

Please don't delete files in the database folder yourself to get rid of databases, but remove databases via openLCA's user interface. Some databases are quite big, the ecoinvent system process (LCI) versions each above 1GB, thus if you have little disc space and restore them often, this can indeed consume what may be left. Solution is therefore to remove the databases via the openLCA interface, and then restore only those you need.

And if this fails, e.g. because you may have now a somewhat messed up database folder, ask the admin to remove the entire database folder and also openLCA and then to install openLCA again (or do this yourself if your user rights allow, and then restore only those databases you need).

Hth

Comments

(Just to not leave  "Restore Database" function seems to be the culprit" open - this function just unpacks a database and does not interfere with other temporary or oher data)