Solution to Database Path Issue

Problem

The application was encountering the following errors when starting up:

Error running migration add_episode_ordering.py: no such table: podcasts
Error running migration add_podcast_tags.py: no such table: podcasts
Error running migration add_season_explicit_naming_format.py: no such table: episodes

And when accessing podcast pages:

sqlite3.OperationalError: no such column: podcasts.tags

Root Cause

The issue was caused by a mismatch between where the application was looking for the database file and where the database file was actually located:

The application was configured to look for the database file at sqlite:///podcastrr.db, which is a relative path to a file in the root directory.
However, the actual database file was located in the instance directory (instance/podcastrr.db).
This caused the migrations to fail because they couldn't find the tables they were trying to modify.

Solution

The solution was to update the database path in the application configuration to point to the correct location:

Modified application.py to change the default database path from sqlite:///podcastrr.db to sqlite:///instance/podcastrr.db.
This ensures that the application and all migrations look for the database file in the instance directory, which is where Flask stores instance-specific files by default.

Changes Made

In application.py, the following change was made:

# Before
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI=os.environ.get('DATABASE_URI', 'sqlite:///podcastrr.db')

# After
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI=os.environ.get('DATABASE_URI', 'sqlite:///instance/podcastrr.db')

How to Verify the Solution

Run the application:
```
python main.py
```
Verify that the application starts without any database-related errors.
Access a podcast page to verify that the "no such column: podcasts.tags" error is resolved.

Preventing Similar Issues in the Future

To prevent similar issues in the future:

Always use consistent database paths across the application.
Consider using Flask's built-in app.instance_path to get the correct instance directory path.
Update the .env.example file to reflect the correct database path:
```
DATABASE_URI=sqlite:///instance/podcastrr.db
```
Document the expected location of the database file in the README.md file.

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