Cache files and maintenance - GoldenCheetah/GoldenCheetah GitHub Wiki

The cache is intended to speed-up chart display pre-computing activity metrics and derived data. Usually cache maintenance goes unnoticed since it is incremental when activities are added, or their data or metadata changes, but there are cases -s.t. modifying user defined metrics or upgrading GoldenCheetah versions- which require full re-computation. This process may take a while depending on the number of activities, intervals, user metrics and hardware configuration, so you will be cued when it is happening since performance can be degraded and charts summarizing information from long periods can change until completion, to minimize this impact update goes backward in time so the recent activities are updated first. If GoldenCheetah is closed before completion the refresh will start a new the next time the athlete is used.

A blue line appears just below the charts bar when a cache refresh is ongoing showing the operation progress and it disappears on completion.

Cache files are stored on the cache folder under athlete's directory, currently they include a single rideDB.json file with metadata and metrics for the athlete, plus a .cpx file for each activity holding precomputed cumulative duration and time in zones data for each one. All this data is derived from activity and config files.

If you suspect the cache is corrupt, for example all PMC charts become flatlined even when data and zones config are correct, you can force a full cache re-computation on the next start deleting the cache files while GoldenCheetah is closed.