Family Historian User Group

I have my projects stored on Google drive. There are about a dozen of them and it is only my master project that I am having problems with.
I have the autosave set at 30 mins and I keep getting a warning that the changes cannot be changed. It then becomes impossible to save the file and the amended file is saved to a temp file.
If I open the tmp file with FH, my changes have been saved but I can't find an option to rename (which I don't really want to do.) If I amend the tmp file, then I get the same message that it cannot be saved and another tmp file is generated.
It suggests that there might be a conflict with some other software, but it only happens with my master project.
Is there anything I can do? I have been using FH for many years and am on the latest update.
My computer has been recently updated to the latest Creators update, but this has been happening since early September
Barbara

To fix the temp file, use Windows File Explorer to first rename the Project .ged file to say .old and then rename the temp file to the Project filename .ged.

If it is only your master Project that is being changed, then that is the only Project being Auto-saved.

If you change some data and then do a File > Save does that work or not?

It would most likely appear to be some interaction with Google Drive.
Is the Project actually getting updated in the Google Drive online cloud drive?
You are still logged into Google Drive I hope?

If you change any other files that are held on Google Drive do they update OK?
Do other FH Projects update OK? e.g. try the Family Historian Sample Project.
(I assume the entire Family Historian Projects folder is on Google Drive.)

Perhaps try reinstalling the Google Drive application.

I stopped using Google drive because of the same problem.
Google Drive "Locks" the file while it is updating the cloud version, so you cannot save while that is happening.
If it is a large project, this could take 10-15 minutes.

Thank you to both of you. All my projects are autosaving. I have had another look at google drive and it seems that the .ged file is being deleted from my c: users google drive when the file is synced. If I go to google drive on the web, the .ged file is there and when I download it to the c:users google drive on my hard drive, the project opens as usual. It seem to relate to the size of the file which is more than 2gb. I do have sufficient storage on Google Drive.
Is reinstalling Google Drive risky? I have a lot of photographs on there.

Do you think I would have the same problem if I used OneDrive or Dropbox? What do you use.

Ihave tried all 3, but ended up using drop box as the sync was a lot faster, and local sync is by local network.
My .ged file is 382Mb, but the project folder is 28Gb

Barbara, 2GB is a huge GEDCOM file, or are you talking about the whole Project folder size?
How many Individuals and Families does that Project contain?

I suspect a file of that size will take some time to synchronise on any cloud service.
So try disabling Auto-save and just rely on manually using File > Save from time to time.
(Having Auto-save set at 30 minutes is not much protection anyway.)

OneDrive is free for up to 5GB.
See fhugdownloads:contents:microsoft_skydrive|> Utility ~ Microsoft OneDrive (SkyDrive).

Dropbox is free for up to 2GB so would not accommodate your Projects unless you pay for extra.
See fhugdownloads:contents:dropbox|> Utility ~ Dropbox.

I use OneDrive for my cloud backups, but to circumvent these sort of "file lock" problems I use a third party file sync/copy tool (SyncBackSE) to automatically copy my "live" files to the OneDrive folder on the PC, then the OneDrive app on the PC uses these to sync to the Cloud. As SyncBackSE is copying the files from one hard disk drive location to another it is very fast, and the "live" files are only locked very briefly, so any applications (eg. FH) don't have a problem.

I've been using this for a few years now and it seems to work well. I'm using this to backup my files to OneDrive, not to synchronise back in the other direction, but SyncBackSE could be configured to do this, still using the intermediate OneDrive local folder as a buffer.

I also do the same for some other files to Google cloud, and I've no reason to think it wouldn't work for DropBox.

I think I will try pausing the sync facility while I am using FH, and restart it when I have finished working and see if that works. If it doesn't, I will try your SyncBackSE solution.
Barbara

Mike

These are the file statistics for the project

Record Counts...
Individual Records:9681
Family Records: 2940
Note Records: 186
Source Records: 762
Repository Records: 29
Submitter Records: 17
Submission Records: 1
Media Records: 511
Place Records: 1745

I have been doing it a long time. I think I had the first version of Family Historian.

I would like to continue with Google Drive if I can as I still have 60GB spare storage. It seems that there a few teething troubles with the new Backup and Scan.
Thanks for your assistance

The media records include a lot of photographs.
Barbara

OK Barbara, I seriously doubt if your GEDCOM file is anywhere near as big as 2GB in size, unless you have accidentally enabled embedded mode, and that may be the crux of you problem.

The photo files linked to Media records are not usually a problem, because they should each be separate files synced separately, and rarely change, unless you have enabled embedded mode .

The File > File Statistics command you used to get the Record Counts, lists the File Name of the GEDCOM file at the top.
Use Windows File Explorer to find that file and check its Size (use right-click Properties if necessary).

Now use Tools > Preferences > General tab, Advanced button, and check if Enable Multimedia GEDCOM Embedding in Project Mode setting is ticked or not?

Let me know the results of that investigation.

In the meantime, yes, pausing Google Drive sync while using FH will work.

Hi Mike
I have checked the advanced tools and "Enable Multimedia GEDCOM Embedding in Project Mode" is not ticked.
The name of the file is
File Name: C:\Users\barba\Google Drive\Family Historian Projects\maintreev4\maintreev4.fh_data\maintreev4.ged


The size of the project is : 2.93 GB (3,152,556,420 bytes)
Size on disk: 2.94 GB (3,157,557,248 bytes)
Contains: 2,499 Files, 68 Folders

The gedcom file size is 750 MB.
Barbara

OK, that makes more sense.
750MB GEDCOM file is much more reasonable, although still quite large, and may take many mins to sync with Google Drive.
So use one of the techniques described earlier.

750 Mb still still seems to be extremely large.
My Gedcom is half that size. (382 Mb)
my Project has statistics as follows

Record Counts...
Individual Records:66288
Family Records: 21546
Note Records: 16
Source Records: 26501
Repository Records: 83
Submitter Records: 1
Submission Records: 0
Media Records: 27912
Place Records: 5589

My thank you response seems to have been lost. I am so grateful to you all. That sinking feeling has disappeared. Pausing the Backup and Sync worked a treat.

For my twopence worth my backup scheme uses SyncBack Free.

1. Disable Autobackup in Family Historian.
2. Create a folder on your working computer called 'Family Historian Projects Backup'
3. Set up with Google Drive that this new folder gets backed up to the cloud.
4. Set up 'Syncback Free' to backup your projects to this folder on a daily (or whatever) basis.

Backup is now automatic and I no longer experience file locks when working on my project. You end up with your live project and a one day old copy on your working computer, plus a one day old version on Google Drive. (Actually, I use SyncBack Free to also backup the new folder to my NAS and it is the NAS that send the files to Google Drive.)

That sounds a good idea. I will give it a try.
Barbara

My Family Historian projects are located in my Dropbox folder. Autosave set to every minute. No problems over several years.

Yes Trevor, but how large is your Gedcom file and your Project folder as a whole?

The larger the Gedcom file the greater the risk of it being locked while syncing when FH wants to Auto-Save.
The OP user has a 750MB Gedcom file.

They also have a 3GB Project folder which is larger than the Dropbox free capacity.

Mike,

A bit off topic, but how can Barbara's .ged file be 750 meg? My project has over twice as many individual records, three times as many family records, three times as many source records, media records, and place records yet my .ged is only 102 meg.

Just curious.

Agreed Bill. Both I and John Morrison expressed surprise at its size.
However, it is clearly large enough to cause a Google Drive syncing problem, and the OP has a satisfactory workaround, so I've decided not to dig any deeper.

I use pcloud drive for all my FH work as it has a free allowance of 10gb data. However, my file is nothing like as big as Barbara's!

Paul