database update may fail
if dbupdate fails to complete (not sure why -- maybe process interrupt?) e.g. color table may be created but empty. this breaks many things. right now fix is to manually remove color table to force a rerun...not sure what the best solution is...
note that the database update path in general is ill-defined. as we get closer to release, and database format is finalized, the versioning/update mechanisms will need to be more carefully managed