Can't migrate custom Plone file types to Blobs

Question

We have custom content types that were created as extensions of the ATTypes, two of them extend the ATFile type and one extends the ATImage type. We recently upgraded from Plone 4.2 to Plone 4.3.2. Just discovered we are not using Blob storage at all. No wonder our Data.fs is HUGE. So, I have been trying to migrate these custom types.

I have followed all of the steps explained in this example and the product's notes from pypi, these Plone instructions, and used the example from the pypi page for archetypes.schemaextender (Sorry, since I'm still a noob my reputation won't let me post more than 2 links).

In the end, I created an extender script that just extends the ATFile type changing the FileField to BlobField. It seems to be working for new items. I can add a new CustomFileType and it appears to be uploading the file to blob, and my new upload field is showing (I changed the description as a quick way to verify which one it was using).

However, I am having a problem migrating all existing content items to move the binary files over to blob. I tried the generic migrate() script, then I created my own migrate and walker as suggested in the above resources. It doesn't seem like it is doing anything though. When printing results for each item it tries merging, I do see this returned for each item:

DEBUG ATCT.migration Migrating /site/path/to/custom/file/filename.ext (CustomFile -> Blob)

When I navigate to the custom file type in the site, where it usually shows the link to the file, it is just empty. Then going to edit, it treats it as if there is no file there. As a check, I disabled the extender, restarted, and reloaded the custom file. The file was there now. So it looks like the script I am running just isn't moving that file over to where it should be now.

I feel like I am missing something simple, and it is right there, but I can't seem to find it. All of this is learn as I go and a bit over my head, so hopefully someone can easily set me straight.

If I need to provide any additional information leave a comment and I will try to provide what you need.

UPDATE I used the Red Turtle objects as examples to migrate my custom types as suggested by keul. I still was not able to get the file to migrate to blob within the type itself. So, I tried a different approach. I created a new custom type "CustomBlob", that is a mimic setup of my CustomFile type, and only extended this new blob type to be blob aware. Then I migrated the CustomFiles to CustomBlob, did a complete clear and rebuild, and packed the zeo. The migration seemed to work for the most part, the blobstorage grew by an expected amount, the new types worked. However, the Data.fs didn't go down in size. I would have thought that the binary files that were stored in Data.fs would be removed during the migration. Am I understanding this incorrectly? How can I remove these files so the Data.fs size goes down appropriately?

Answer 1

Not sure if this is the best solution, but here is how I was able to get this to work.

I created temporary content types parallel of each type (for CustomImage I made CustomImageBlob, and so on). I made the new types blob-aware only, migrated all types to their parallel. Then I enabled the extender for the original types to make them blob-aware, and migrated back. It is a little redundant and time consuming, but I just could not get the files to migrate to blob when migrating to itself.

Providing this as the best answer so far in case it helps someone else, or might encourage someone to find a better solution. Thanks for the tip keul, it definitely helped me get to this solution.