What is the Path Cache? What are Filesystem Locations?

The path cache is used by Toolkit to track the associations between folders on disk and entities in ShotGrid. The master cache is stored in ShotGrid using the FilesystemLocation entity type. Each user then has their own version of the path cache stored locally in the Toolkit cache directory on disk, which is synchronized in the background whenever applications are launched or folders are created.

Typically, we don’t advise modifying the path cache manually. Our internal processes not only sync your local cache with the FilesystemLocation entities in ShotGrid, but also create event log entries that allow all users’ machines to stay in sync with ShotGrid.

There are a couple tank commands that can be used to modify the path cache:

• tank unregister_folders removes path cache associations.
• tank synchronize_folders forces a sync of the local path cache with ShotGrid.

Typically you won’t need to run either of these commands, but in certain circumstances, they can be useful. For example, unregister_folders should be run before renaming or recreating an entity in your project.