Where are all of the “LightBurn” files living? I’d like to move those files to a cloud folder like dropbox, so that when I’m working on my desktop or my laptop, both Llight Burns are same. I figured out how to export and load preferences but that’s kind of a hassle to do it everytime. I’m getting a lot of messy files when I open them because I open one on the desktop and then save it to dropbox and when I open it on the laptop, there are quite a few configurations are changing that are not saved in the preferences and I’m not exactly sure where those files live, but it be nice if I could move them to a cloud folder somewhere.
You can see the location of the files by going to File->Open prefs folder.
Having said that, I’d discourage you from trying to forcefully relocate the location of those files as they’re really expected to be managed internally. I’d separately discourage you from trying to host those on a cloud platform with active files. There are known issues with LightBurn and cloud storage platforms causing corrupted files.
You could attempt to do an offline file sync while no LightBurn instance is running. If you attempt this I’d suggest you do a one-way sync or a most-current sync but not try to merge the files in any way.
In any case, it’s your system so do what you want as long as you know the potential risks. Let us know how you carry on in case others can benefit.
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I use a remotely mounted disk… I’ve had no issues…
As in a network file system or something else? If so I’d put this in a different category from a cloud drive in terms of implementation and potential problem scenarios.
Are you using the same mounted disk for multiple concurrent installations of LightBurn?
Yes, actually I was just using Ubuntu samba I think … all of them reside on the local server… Linux looks at it like a local disk drive as far as I know… I ran over a year this way.
Both the office and garage machine were up and using the same laser. Both were pointed to the same source or project file. I did a new out on the lasers copy before reloading the file…
Should it have not worked?
Whole thing was over the lan, but it ran at a Gb speeds, didn’t even notice it…
The Ruida didn’t know who sent it what…
Were you using the network drive for a shared prefs file location?
I ran Lightburn, then exit. Copied the files to the server in a similar structure, so I could find them.
Put the remote drive information into fstab - re mounted all
Symbolic link to the network drive…
Brought up Lightburn …
I probably left out something, but you get the idea?
I can’t be at both computers at the same time, so I didn’t worry about it too much about that interaction…
Is this not supposed to work?
Which files? The installation files or the prefs folder specifically. Note that they are not located in the same structure.
This depends on which files you’re sharing. The installation files I wouldn’t anticipate a problem with at all. The prefs file could easily result in a collision scenario depending on usage.
This /home/jack/.config/LightBurn/ along with my machine settings, fonts and art libraries.
Listing of the ~/.config/LightBurn directories…
drwxrwxr-x 5 jack jack 4096 Jun 18 13:50 backup
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jack jack 44463 Sep 16 08:48 prefs.ini
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jack jack 44462 Sep 15 19:55 prefs.ini.old
drwxrwxr-x 2 jack jack 4096 Aug 11 12:19 presets
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jack jack 53 Sep 16 16:28 restore.lb
here
Think this is bad practice?
More that I’m surprised this hasn’t posed a problem.
If you’re willing to experiment try this:
- Take a backup of your current prefs folder
- Open LightBurn on both computers
- Make a prefs impacting change on both computers but distinct changes
- Close out both instances
What happens? I suspect one of the following:
- last instance to write will be the only change reflected
- file will be locked and second computer to open will not be able to write at all
- causes unpredictable behavior
LightBurn is not currently designed for multi-user multi-access.
We even see this on single computer multi-instance where changes in only one instance will be preserved.
From docs:
Please note that if you change LightBurn’s settings while you have multiple windows open, the settings in whichever window is closed last will be saved to the preferences file and will overwrite any changes you made previously in other windows.
If I had to guess, this would be the same behavior on shared prefs folder with the potential added variable of network file system.
Understood, thank you.
Thanks… but I figured this when I created it… It only saves whomever last updates the file, which is to be expected.
I’m aware of many of the problems with multiple instances of software or routines that can be interrupted and another thread can run the same code…
I did say was configured this way… it’s been taken down because I haven’t finished wiring up the new location, so I can’t do much about it anymore… I sure miss having it… 
I did manage to send two files at the same time and it would fail … don’t know if the bridge was complaining or the Ruida… I had my spouse send at the same time I sent from the other machine… didn’t expect any real errors, but Lightburn did give me the file failed message… don’t know where it originated…
Only tried it a few times…
Got you. As long as you’re aware of the risks and behavior in order to avoid them then it’s manageable. These type of conditions give me hives, though, so avoid them if at all possible.
I hear you… I get those when someone is going to do a firmware upgrade/update for no reason.
I don’t know how many machines I’ve bricked when I did a firmware upgrade… 
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