Family Historian User Group

I recently switched to a new laptop and used a backup to move my project. I've just now noticed that all media with Scandinavian letters in its name (Æ Ø Å) is missing. At first I thought it had something to do with the language setting on my new laptop, but I then checked the ZIP files for my backups throughout the years and found that the files are missing there as well. Luckily I still have the old laptop, so I could just copy paste the contents of the old media folder to restore the missing files, but this could potentially have been a huge issue with hundreds of missing records and photos.

Could you clarify? Was this a backup made using the FH backup facilities? I'm assuming so. In which case this sounds like something you should report to Calico Pie via the Help > Technical support route within the program.

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

18 Aug 2022 19:19

Could you clarify? Was this a backup made using the FH backup facilities?

It was.

Definitely report to Calico Pie.

Rick,

Are you sure they area actually missing from the backup file?

I have a lot of media with Norwegian characters in the names. My backups contain all the media, but they don't appear in the backup file as expected. In the backup file none of the Norwegian characters display as themselves. For instance, the character Ø is converted to (or displays as) something that looks like ┼. Instead of sorting down by the O's, it sorts at the beginning of the list. Once the project is restored, all the files are there and all the characters are converted back to the correct characters.

I just tested by backing up and restoring my project and all the media was there with the correct names.

Hopefully that is what is happening in your case and you haven't really lost anything.

Bill

Hi Bill,
Yeah I'm absolutely positive. The files are entirely missing from all my backups. I never would have noticed had I not switched to a new computer. This isn't the first time I've had an issue with Scandinavian characters in FH (Scandinavian letter capitalization (19629) resolved) and I suspect the two are related.

Rick,

That's too bad. They seem to work fine for me. I wonder what might be the problem.

I agree, you should open a ticket with Calico Pie.

Bill

I suspect it would help calico pie, if you can send them a small project which exhibits this problem, sending both a standard FH backup of the project and a compressed folder (zip) made with windows, so hopefully they can track down the issue.

I have moved this to the FH General Usage forum because it is of much wider interest and has nothing to do with Importing and Exporting to other products.

BTW: If you follow the FHUG KB Family Historian Copy and Migration Guide it does not advise using FH Project Backups but does advise on copying Program Settings.

Sorry to be awkward Rick, but you say Scandinavian letter capitalization (19629) was resolved.
However, there seems to be nothing in that thread explaining how it was resolved.
Could you please describe the solution as it may be relevant to the Project Backup problem.

Furthermore, I have just performed a Project Medium Backup and a Restore with a Media record and file using the Ø Swedish character and it worked perfectly.

But if I alter the filetype from fhbak to zip and expand its folders & files in File Explorer the Ø character is NOT shown but replaced by another character. But I suspect that is just an internal encoding side effect.

There is plenty of discussion online about the Windows built-in zip routines not fully supporting Unicode characters correctly, so I suspect that is the root cause. Agree it needs reporting to CP, as general users shouldn’t need to delve into the internal plumbing. Hopefully there will be a better-developed third party tool they can use instead, rather than just accept Microsoft limitations.

tatewise wrote: ↑

19 Aug 2022 09:46

Sorry to be awkward Rick, but you say Scandinavian letter capitalization (19629) was resolved.
However, there seems to be nothing in that thread explaining how it was resolved.
Could you please describe the solution as it may be relevant to the Project Backup problem.
Furthermore, I have just performed a Project Medium Backup and a Restore with a Media record and file using the Ø Swedish character and it worked perfectly.
But if I alter the filetype from fhbak to zip and expand its folders & files in File Explorer the Ø character is NOT shown but replaced by another character. But I suspect that is just an internal encoding side effect.

I only noticed it yesterday, but I suspect the capitalization issue was resolved when I switched to the new laptop. It seems both problems are limited to the old machine, since I just tested the backup with a new media file and it worked perfectly. Being as it is I'm not going to file a report. I'm just relieved my work was salvageable.