* Unrecognised File Format

[Kathryn]

Family Historian was working fine for me yesterday and I made quite a few changes to one of my projects, saving periodically. However, this morning when I tried to open that particular project it would not open (other projects I have open OK). Please see screen shot below for the error message.
The gedcom file in question was last updated at 23.44 on 3/1/2016. I did not shut down my computer overnight and between then and when I tried to re-open the file today either there was a Windows update or my computer crashed. I have checked the Windows update log and two updates failed to install. I am using Windows 10 Pro. I have tried opening the file from within Family Historian and from within File Explorer but neither works. I have searched my computer and have found a backup file that was created at 23.10 on 3/1/2016. I can open this - none of the media is showing , presumably because it is in a different folder, but more importantly it seems to be missing some of the later changes I made. If possible I would therefore ideally like to be able to use the original gedcom file. Any help with this would really be appreciated. Thank you.

[tatewise]

OK, so if nothing else succeeds you can at least recover from the Backup but will lose the last 30 minutes of changes.
See glossary:backup_and_recovery|> Backup and Recovery that explains the procedure for using File > Backup/Restore > Restore, which is different depending on whether it is a Small Gedcom only backup or a Medium/Full Backup.
Please ask if anything is not clear.

Now regarding the problem Project, what is in its Project folder?
\Family Historian Projects\Harrison and Betts Families\
It should hold Harrison and Betts Families.fh_data and Public folders, and the Harrison and Betts Families.fh_proj file.
Then look in:
\Family Historian Projects\Harrison and Betts Families\Harrison and Betts Families.fh_data\
There should be folders such as Books, Charts, Media, Plugin Data and just one file Harrison and Betts Families.ged but is there anything else?

Can you open that .ged file in Notepad or WordPad?
Find them by entering their name in Start > Search.
Then use Open and navigate to the above folder.
Ensure the lower right setting is All Files/Documents (*.*) otherwise you will not see the .ged file.
Its first few lines should look like:
0 HEAD
1 SOUR FAMILY_HISTORIAN
2 VERS 5.0
2 NAME Family Historian
2 CORP Calico Pie Limited
1 FILE C:\Users\.......\Harrison and Betts Families.ged
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED

[Kathryn]

Mike, thank you very much for your reply. In my data file (in addition to the folders you mention) there is the problem Harrison and Betts gedcom file plus a couple of other older gedcoms but that is all.

I have tried opening the problem .ged file with both Wordpad and Notepad but although the filename appears at the top of the application, there are no lines showing at all. I tried opening another .ged file and that did display correctly, so am I right in assuming that somehow this latest .ged file has been corrupted and I will have to restore from the backup? The latest backup I have is actually in my Ancestral Sources folder and presumably was created after I had added a census entry in Ancestral Sources so I guess that this will be a small gedcom.

[tatewise]

Yes, it looks like that Gedcom has been corrupted overnight somehow.

The AS backups are a simple copy of the Gedcom (not a Compressed ZIP like the FH backups).
So simply copy that AS backup Gedcom into your Project .fh_data folder and rename it to replace corrupted Gedcom.

[Kathryn]

Mike, thank you so much for your help. I have successfully opened the project from the latest Ancestral Sources back up so everything is OK now.