Re-initializing SQLite DB doesn't delete old DB from device

[bob-reus]

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• I give permission for members of the FlutterFlow team to access and test my project for the sole purpose of investigating this issue.

Current Behavior

We intend to use a read-only SQLite database to populate an offline-first knowledge base in our mobile app. During our tests we noted that when we want to update this file, the database:

1. doesn't get updated if we keep the database name the same, or
2. keeps the old database file on the user's device when we change the database name

As there's no way to tell how often we'll have to update the contents of this knowledge base, this will lead to a lot of wasted space on the user's device.

Expected Behavior

I expect the database file to be overwritten by the new database file, if we choose to re-initialize by renaming the database name.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Activate SQLite integration
2. Enter a name for the database and upload SQLite database
3. Compile and open app
4. Enter a different database name and upload a new file
5. Compile and open app
   You will need to run in an emulator or have root access to check this

Reproducible from Blank

• The steps to reproduce above start from a blank project.

Bug Report Code (Required)

IT4eksjf35N2seEC1aqNd+9anjwsQ2I6aI0709VxbAwjF5TwPex3eej+QHZVOMO/dFY3OlmI8WM0w+DIhYbDCfoHPiirR6px1al6YRbdRkCWbLrRPquSf39CMNNQf0+HzbSzgx54AM91SGQH6lymIOSAQh3tO4D2NlVBDv2ZBLrXjkKkGhzOXn0Jg1ZSfCvr

Visual documentation

Note; the names are illustrative. Actual SQLite file is named differently.

Environment

- FlutterFlow version: 6.3.1 released September 9, 2025
- Platform: Web and Windows Desktop

Additional Information

I lost count of how many ways we have attempted to build something with our very basic requirements* without resorting to build all pages by hand: App state has a 100kb limit, and when the above issue popped up we initially wrote a custom SQLite implementation, which is blocked by a different issue. It shouldn't be this difficult.

* Requirements:

• 20+ pages of similarly structured content
• available offline
• basic styling
• images
• searchable

[Alezanello]

Hi there!

That’s correct — you’ll need to change the name if you want SQLite to be re-initialized on the user’s device and fetch the latest database file. As for the old file, we currently don’t provide an option to delete it directly, and it’s unlikely that this will be added. However, you can achieve this by creating a custom action to delete it from the app assets.

[bob-reus]

Yes, that's what we've resorted to.

If it's not a bug, then the SQLite integration is very limited, incomplete and/or poorly documented. The way it's implemented also makes it impossible to build a custom integration, because there's no other way to add database files to the assets. Would you like me to make a new bug report for that?

[bob-reus]

Or at least please make the database name and asset name accessible from code, instead of hard-coding them in the initializeDatabaseFromDbFile function call. (See lib/backend/sqlite/sqlite_manager.dart:24).

I have non-coder coworkers who need to be able to just upload a database file and click deploy, without having to dive into custom code. As it is now, the only way I can achieve that is by deleting the database every time the app starts.

[Alezanello]

You can add multiple .db files and choose which one to use directly in the SQLite feature settings. You can also upload a new database and change its name—this will initialize the newly uploaded SQLite.

As for deleting other SQLite files from the user’s device, this currently needs to be handled through a custom action. I’ll create an internal feature/enhancement request to make this easier in the future.

For now, please note that this is expected behavior and not a bug.

Screen Recording 2025-09-16 at 10.24.35 AM.mov

[bob-reus]

I ended up writing a set of functions that compare the hash of the .db file in assets to the one copied to the device, and deletes the latter if they differ. I execute this before SQLiteManager.initialize();. It's non-obvious and hacky, and it has to assume that filenames never change, but it seems to do the trick.

You can add multiple .db files and choose which one to use directly in the SQLite feature settings. You can also upload a new database and change its name—this will initialize the newly uploaded SQLite.

This means I have to turn on the SQLite integration to upload a .db file. This is inconvenient if I want to write a custom integration, because the default integration gets added to main.dart in a way I can't remove or overrule. Technically I could enable it, upload the file I want to add, then disable it again, but you know...

Adding *.db to the list of accepted file types in Media Assets would make life much easier.

I’ll create an internal feature/enhancement request to make this easier in the future.

I hope it will become easier to replace or modify the SQLite integration in the future. Thank you for looking into this.

[Alezanello]

I’m adding an internal ticket for this enhancement request. Since this GitHub issue tracker is meant for bugs rather than feature/enhancement requests, I’ll go ahead and close this ticket for now. Rest assured, the enhancement request is already on our engineering team’s backlog.