Important Warning - Please Read! nbsp;
Posted: 06 Jan 2003 15:05
The purpose of this is twofold:
(1) As you may have read in this Mailing List, Ian Thirlwell recently lost all of his data in circumstances which could affect other people; so you should be aware of it and understand how to make sure it doesn't happen to you.
(2) To summarise other bugs in F.H. that you should be aware of.
(1) Ian Thirlwell's Loss of Data
---------------------------------
Ian Thirlwell lost his data when the following occurred: first, he ran out of disk space on his hard disk. Its not clear why he ran out of space, but the significant fact for present purposes is that the Save failed (so did the Save As) when he tried to save his file. Unfortunately, because of the way 2.0 is designed, this meant that not only was the new data that he had entered not saved, but the old data that had been in this file was lost - it was overwritten with just a file header. If he had followed the steps as described in (a) below, he should have been able to save his work; but unfortunately he closed F.H. at this point, which wasn't the right thing to do (not that he could have know that). Even more unfortunately, he hadn't got any backups.
I have changed the way that Saving works in 2.1 so that nothing like this should happen in the future (see below for more on this); however, until 2.1, you should be aware of the following, to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen to you:
(a) If you try to save and the save fails for lack of disk space, do not close Family Historian. Instead, leave it open and run another program like Windows Explorer which will allow you to find files you don't need and delete them. When you have cleared enough space, then try again to save your data in F.H.
If the save fails for a reason other than lack of disk space, again, do not close F.H. Try to work out what has caused the problem and rectify it. Then try again to save, perhaps using Save As.
(b) Please take backups! Its really worth thinking about how often, and what kind of backups to do. One reasonable strategy for example might be to make a backup copy of your Family Tree file somewhere on your hard disk, after every lengthy session using F.H. Backups to somewhere on your hard disk are quick and easy to do, and give you some protection. You get better protection by copying your file onto another medium altogether (e.g. a CD-rom, ZIP drive, or whatever). Perhaps you might decide to do that after every 3 sessions (say). If you do copy onto an external medium, do label the CD properly (its amazing how easy it is to do a backup and then lose the backup). One easy way to make a backup copy of you file is to use the File > Save As facility.
Changes for 2.1
2.1 will use a more robust method for performing Saves. It will temporarily rename the current file, then attempt the save. If the save fails, it will rollback to the pre-Save state. This should mean that whatever happens during a save - if the save fails (even for software reasons) it should never be possible to lose the data you had prior to the save. In fact, even if you switch off the computer halfway through the save, you will still have a copy of your file in the same folder, as from the last successful save (in that particular scenario it would still have its temporary name; so you would have to locate it and rename it back again - in nearly all other circumstances you would never need to know about the temporary name business). It sounds as though this should make Saving slower but actually it doesn't.
In addition to this, 2.1 will also have a Backup and Restore facility which will make it easier to backup your file to a zip file (ie. a format that WinZip uses; so you will be able to email backed-up files to other people if you want to). You will be prompted (unless you choose otherwise) to do a backup at the end of every F.H. session.
Finally, there will also be an Autosave facility so that you can set F.H. to automatically save your changes every few minutes (the period specified by you).
(2) Summary of Bugs in F.H.
------------------------------
@ character in Notes and Addresses
If you go to the articles section of the Family Historian User Group web-site (http://www.familyhistorian.ip3.com) you will see 4 articles about 4 bugs in F.H. Of these the most serious in my view is the one entitled '@ character in Notes and and Addresses'. Everyone should be aware of this bug, which can cause F.H. files to become bloated and eventually impossible to load. The bug is caused by occurrences of the @ character in Notes and Addresses - or rather, the bug occurs if the @ character is not in the first 240 chars of the Note or Address, or if it is not in the first paragraph. If you think you could be affected by this bug, you should be aware that there is a program called 'FH Copy and Correct' which can be downloaded from the User Group site, which you can use both to find out if you are affected by the bug, and if so, to correct the problem. This program was written since the article about the bug was written, which is why it isn't mentioned in that article.
The other listed bugs are less serious (though worth being aware of). However, there is also one other serious bug which is not listed in the User Group web-site. That is this one: It only happens if you are running either Windows 2000 or Windows XP: if you try to change the sex of someone in the Records Window, who is already a spouse in a family record, F.H. will put up a message box telling you 'You may not modify or delete an Individual's sex if he or she is a spouse in a Family record'. When you click OK to close this message box, F.H. produces an error and is immediately closed by Windows. Please note that this will only happen, as I say, (a) if the person is already a spouse in a family record (b) if you try to change their sex in the Records Window and (c) if you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. If you try to do the same thing in the Property Dialog, it won't happen (unless you do it in the 'All' tab - which behaves like the Records Window). This is the only bug I know that will cause F.H. to 'crash' - ie. to be immediately closed.
We apologise for these bugs. They will all (and all the ones currently listed in the User Group) be fixed in 2.1.
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer
(1) As you may have read in this Mailing List, Ian Thirlwell recently lost all of his data in circumstances which could affect other people; so you should be aware of it and understand how to make sure it doesn't happen to you.
(2) To summarise other bugs in F.H. that you should be aware of.
(1) Ian Thirlwell's Loss of Data
---------------------------------
Ian Thirlwell lost his data when the following occurred: first, he ran out of disk space on his hard disk. Its not clear why he ran out of space, but the significant fact for present purposes is that the Save failed (so did the Save As) when he tried to save his file. Unfortunately, because of the way 2.0 is designed, this meant that not only was the new data that he had entered not saved, but the old data that had been in this file was lost - it was overwritten with just a file header. If he had followed the steps as described in (a) below, he should have been able to save his work; but unfortunately he closed F.H. at this point, which wasn't the right thing to do (not that he could have know that). Even more unfortunately, he hadn't got any backups.
I have changed the way that Saving works in 2.1 so that nothing like this should happen in the future (see below for more on this); however, until 2.1, you should be aware of the following, to ensure that nothing like this could ever happen to you:
(a) If you try to save and the save fails for lack of disk space, do not close Family Historian. Instead, leave it open and run another program like Windows Explorer which will allow you to find files you don't need and delete them. When you have cleared enough space, then try again to save your data in F.H.
If the save fails for a reason other than lack of disk space, again, do not close F.H. Try to work out what has caused the problem and rectify it. Then try again to save, perhaps using Save As.
(b) Please take backups! Its really worth thinking about how often, and what kind of backups to do. One reasonable strategy for example might be to make a backup copy of your Family Tree file somewhere on your hard disk, after every lengthy session using F.H. Backups to somewhere on your hard disk are quick and easy to do, and give you some protection. You get better protection by copying your file onto another medium altogether (e.g. a CD-rom, ZIP drive, or whatever). Perhaps you might decide to do that after every 3 sessions (say). If you do copy onto an external medium, do label the CD properly (its amazing how easy it is to do a backup and then lose the backup). One easy way to make a backup copy of you file is to use the File > Save As facility.
Changes for 2.1
2.1 will use a more robust method for performing Saves. It will temporarily rename the current file, then attempt the save. If the save fails, it will rollback to the pre-Save state. This should mean that whatever happens during a save - if the save fails (even for software reasons) it should never be possible to lose the data you had prior to the save. In fact, even if you switch off the computer halfway through the save, you will still have a copy of your file in the same folder, as from the last successful save (in that particular scenario it would still have its temporary name; so you would have to locate it and rename it back again - in nearly all other circumstances you would never need to know about the temporary name business). It sounds as though this should make Saving slower but actually it doesn't.
In addition to this, 2.1 will also have a Backup and Restore facility which will make it easier to backup your file to a zip file (ie. a format that WinZip uses; so you will be able to email backed-up files to other people if you want to). You will be prompted (unless you choose otherwise) to do a backup at the end of every F.H. session.
Finally, there will also be an Autosave facility so that you can set F.H. to automatically save your changes every few minutes (the period specified by you).
(2) Summary of Bugs in F.H.
------------------------------
@ character in Notes and Addresses
If you go to the articles section of the Family Historian User Group web-site (http://www.familyhistorian.ip3.com) you will see 4 articles about 4 bugs in F.H. Of these the most serious in my view is the one entitled '@ character in Notes and and Addresses'. Everyone should be aware of this bug, which can cause F.H. files to become bloated and eventually impossible to load. The bug is caused by occurrences of the @ character in Notes and Addresses - or rather, the bug occurs if the @ character is not in the first 240 chars of the Note or Address, or if it is not in the first paragraph. If you think you could be affected by this bug, you should be aware that there is a program called 'FH Copy and Correct' which can be downloaded from the User Group site, which you can use both to find out if you are affected by the bug, and if so, to correct the problem. This program was written since the article about the bug was written, which is why it isn't mentioned in that article.
The other listed bugs are less serious (though worth being aware of). However, there is also one other serious bug which is not listed in the User Group web-site. That is this one: It only happens if you are running either Windows 2000 or Windows XP: if you try to change the sex of someone in the Records Window, who is already a spouse in a family record, F.H. will put up a message box telling you 'You may not modify or delete an Individual's sex if he or she is a spouse in a Family record'. When you click OK to close this message box, F.H. produces an error and is immediately closed by Windows. Please note that this will only happen, as I say, (a) if the person is already a spouse in a family record (b) if you try to change their sex in the Records Window and (c) if you are running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. If you try to do the same thing in the Property Dialog, it won't happen (unless you do it in the 'All' tab - which behaves like the Records Window). This is the only bug I know that will cause F.H. to 'crash' - ie. to be immediately closed.
We apologise for these bugs. They will all (and all the ones currently listed in the User Group) be fixed in 2.1.
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer