Hope the problem isn’t too special. My setting: I run darktable from a external HDD and switch PCs, all Windows 10. All images are on the same external drive.
I start darktable with: start /d "G:\Cam_Stuff\darktable\darktable3411\bin" darktable.exe --configdir G:\Cam_Stuff\darktable\darktable3411\userdata\config
When I edit an image I see the changes in lighttable. When I swap the drive to another PC and start darktable, the lighttable view shows the undeveloped image. When I open the images I see the all the processing I did before and the image is correct. Going back to lighttable the image is correct now.
It’s a minor irritation, but I wonder if I really load all settings or if darktable stores something on the PCs drive. I don’t run sidecar files.
Yes, it does store cache in separate place and thumbnail is shown from cache. so if you displayed image undeveloped on one pc, then developed it on second and then brought back to 1st pc then the thumbnail will be undeveloped one.
Funny thing is, the cache folder (INetCache) is hidden. You can go up to \Windows\ then you need to type \INetCache
There are several folders in \darktable. I will need to explore how I can transfer them. And if that even makes sense considering that the external HDD is slower than the SSD cache, and it is a minor issue, and I use mainly one PC to work on darktable. I will probably leave it as it is.
Not all that strange: caches are usually supposed to be transparent for the user, and are only supposed to be an implementation detail (optimisation, intermediate results, that kind of thing). And messing with the contents of a cache could potentially break things. All good reasons to hide it from the user…