* Unable to open project - unknown error

[HollyAdams01]

Yesterday morning my computer had a blip of some sort, and the various things I had open wouldn't allow me to save due to an unknown issue with file permissions. FH gave me an "unknown error" that it was unable to save to the *.ged (I have it set to autosave every 5 minutes).

This was annoying but I wasn't working on anything critical, so saved the document and spreadsheet with new file names (which worked) and backed up my FH project (which also worked).

This morning when I've opened FH, I get the error: "Unable to open file [path details] Holly*ged. An unknown error has occurred."

I'm not entirely sure what to do here. I can open the same project which is in the same folder, so shares the same path. Restore from the backup? Any idea what happened?

FH version 6
OS Win 10

[tatewise]

Hi Holly, that kind of blip is most annoying, and is one reason why it is so important to make regular backups of all your Documents to separate media (I am NOT talking about FH Backups).

I think you may have three recovery options for FH:

1. Use File Explorer to inspect the Project path where Holly.ged should be located.
   e.g. ...\Documents\Family Historian Projects\Holly\Holly.fh_data\
   Is there is a file named something like ~fh***.tmp where the *** are various alphanumeric characters?
   If so, then try renaming that file to Holly.ged.
2. Use the FH Backup and restore it as explained in glossary:backup_and_recovery|> Backup and Recovery.
   The technique varies depending on whether it is a Small (Gedcom only) backup or a Medium/Full backup.
3. Use your regular Documents backups to recover the Holly.ged file.
   If you do not keep regular backups then follow the advice in glossary:backup_and_recovery|> Backup and Recovery.

[HollyAdams01]

Thank you so much Mike, #1 did the trick!

I am a compulsive backupper (I'm sure it's a word or should be), so have daily backups both to external hard drives and the cloud. On 28 November 2001 I had a hard drive crash and although most of my family tree was recoverable, the table of sources in the underlying database was not. I know that date by heart because it appeared on every single record for years as I went back, branch by branch, rebuilding all the sources (it's not as tedious as it sounds - I learned a lot more by re-reading everything I'd amassed up to that point).

The underlying issue seems not to be common just to me - Google "invalid MS-DOS function Windows 10" and see how many others have also suddenly found read/write permissions occurring. Some seem to have cleared the problem after multiple restarts, others by restarting in safe mode and doing a clean boot, some from defragmenting, but there doesn't seem to be a straightforward fix at the moment. A word of warning to anyone upgrading to Windows 10 - you might want to wait for 10.1 to be released!

[mjashby]

It seems to be primarily (if not entirely) Windows 7 users who are affected by the changed Folder/File Permissions issue, but only some Windows 7 Users. One cause seems to be having the OneDrive Desktop Application installed on Windows 7 when the Upgrade is carried out. That problem doesn't seem to have affected Windows 8.1 - 10 Upgrades, presumably because OneDrive is a built-in Windows 8.1 app.

There have also been significant problems where users have not deactivated/uninstalled their Security programs whilst performing the upgrade, together with post-upgrade incompatibility issues with software from Kaspersky, Norton and Eset, which those software houses are presumably working to fix.

All Upgraders also need to check with Manufacturer's Support Sites that 'older' PCs/Laptops, Printers and external hardware are compatible with Windows 10 as some of the big manufacturers are not testing their 'older' products for compatibility and are also no longer updating the essential Driver software, no doubt in the hope that users will choose to upgrade their equipment.

[tatewise]

I have added some glossary:windows_10_upgrade_tips|> Windows 10 Upgrade Tips that may grow as we learn more.