Migration to external mongo db does not populate file data

[ndnguru]

When I tried the migration tool to (transferring to MongoLab), I ran into an issue with files. The migration tool doesn't seem to populate the type, url or name of the file object.

Here is my issue:
I started the migration of my data to a mongoLab db. Then when I went to MonoLab to verify, I noticed a big problem! On my _User collection, for example, I have a field 'photoFile', which stores an image (jpg, png, etc).

When I export the data to JSON using Parse's export tool from the data browser on Parse, I see sufficient data about that photoFile field (example below, what I expect to see in the mongo db):

{
...
"photoFile": {
            "__type": "File",            
            "name": "tfss-XXX-XXX-ETC.png",
            "url": "http://files.parsetfss.com/asdfasdfasdf/tfss-XXX-XXX-ETC.png"
        }
...
}

Now, when I look in the new MongoLab collection for that _User collection, it just has the filename listed instead. No type or location data (URL) is provided as with the JSON export above:

//what I actually see in the mongo db
{
...
     "photoFile": "tfss-XXX-XXX-ETC.png"  
...
}

Questions:

1. How do I know where to access my data!? No URL means no clue where the file is!
2. Do I have to change the way I access data on the client side?
3. How do we migrate files from parse file servers to our own S3 buckets?

[christianmarth]

Duplicate of #420 and #113

[gfosco]

So, this is how files have been stored in the database, but the server changes the object before returning it to a client via a query. By providing parse-server with a fileKey (from the parse dashboard settings,) the server can know how to render the same urls. Shouldn't lead to any client changes.

An actual S3 -> S3 migration is being planned. Follow along in #8. Thanks. 👍