* Back-Up & Restore of Witness Roles

[MartinB]

Hi, I hope you might be able to help.

I've just done a FH7 migration from a Windows 10 laptop to a Windows 11 laptop. Both have the latest versions of FH and the Back-up and Restore Plug-in. No glitches - but I might have some lessons for others in a separate post soon, but not for now. Huge thanks for the guidance in the KB and indeed the plug-in itself.

I'm now doing some checks that everything looks and behaves like it did before (or indeed a bit faster on the new machine!). I've noticed (initially spotted whilst running some test reports) that my customised Witness Roles appear not to have been carried across. I previously set up customised Witness Roles for both Standard and Custom Fact Types. It looks like the Witness Roles for the Custom Fact Types have migrated successfully but not the ones associated with Standard Fact Types.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I should have created Custom Fact Types (ages ago) - based on the Standard Fact Types - and THEN created the associated new Witness Roles with those customised versions because it appears the Back-up and Restore routines may only consider Custom Fact Types (apologies if I am wrong in this assumption).

So I might have some major surgery ahead of me to re-create (and assign) new Fact Types and Witness Roles. I think I might as well do this in my target version. Am I correct or is there something else to consider?

Many thanks, Martin.

[tatewise]

The Backup and Restore Family Historian Settings plugin should migrate everything including both Standard and Custom settings of all data types including Fact Sets.

There should be no need to create Custom Facts based on Standard Facts just to add Witness Roles.
Actually, it is crucial not to do that because the Custom Facts will not be recognised by FH or other software as Standard Facts, e.g. Custom Birth, Marriage & Death facts will not be recognised as Birth, Marriage & Death Events with dire consequences on many FH features.

Are you sure when using the Plugin RESTORE function that you took the appropriate options when it advised that there may be a date conflict between the Program Data Settings and the Backup Folder? If on the new PC the installed Standard Fact Set file has a later Date than the Backup Folder Standard Fact Set file then choosing the wrong restore option may inhibit the backup settings from overwriting the installed settings.

[MartinB]

Mike, huge thanks for your help here.

I've just re-run the B&R Plug-in and chosen the "Copy All Old Files" option and that has done the trick. I can now see my custom Witness Roles on Standard Fact Types on the new pc. I'd obviously chosen the wrong option before - even though I stopped and thought about it!

I'm not sure of the difference between "Copy Old Back-Up Folder File" and "Copy All Old Files" so I did the latter hoping to update everything.

Of course, I hadn't thought through the implications of cloning standard Fact Types and appreciate your warning about this.

I'll do a few more checks on my migrated version but it's looking good.
I'm mighty relieved

Thanks, Martin.

[tatewise]

"Copy Old Back-Up Folder File" applies to just the current identified file.
"Copy All Old Files" applies to the current file and every other Back-Up Folder file dated older than the Settings Folder file.