Troubles importing a database into openLCA

Question

I am trying to import the Sphera database, which is only available as ILCD and not .zolca. Therefore, I cannot simply restore database. When I try to create a new database and import from the .zip file, the import process "freezes" a few minutes in and is always stuck on the same material. When I click stop it shows me that it imported only the first 10,000 values. Then I have to repeat this process a few times to get the whole data. Is this a setting I can change or could somebody explain why this is happening? Thank you.

I am running the newest version of openLCA 2.0.4

Answer 1

I understand, importing GaBi databases is a bit tricky. We get all GaBi databases from Sphera though (for distribution to clients who bought the license from us) also in ILCD format and do not need to do this stepwise approach. We can support you if needed, the import is as said not really smooth, e.g. as GaBi ILCD files do not contain (I would say) everything needed for the import, but this stop that you observe could be due to a memory shortage - if you increase the memory access in openLCA then it could help, or you could monitor the development of memory usage in openLCA during the import, in the task manager. Curious to hear your response!

Andreas

Comments

Hi,
I am encountering the same issue when trying to import an old version of the EF database in ILCD format.

The import freezes at some point and 9,995 items are imported with 5 errors, so the total is also 10,000. I have tried allocating more memory to openLCA from the preferences tab, but it does not solve the problem.
Also, during the import, openLCA constantly uses around 2GB of memory according to my task manager.

Do you have any other idea that could perhaps solve the problem ?
Thanks for your time !

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Yes, this is caused by the ILCD format typically, which is somewhat "bloated". For that reason we publish the current EF database via the DAL.