Family Historian User Group

I have had this happen a couple of times now and can see no common "theme" in my workflows that would cause this problem on the occasions that it does occur.

In essence, I normally garner a number of source records from FMP (either directly via their search or via the Hints process) and then set about entering them to FH via AS. With FH open, I normally open four or five PDF's I have created from the FMP transcripts and then open AS via the Plugin. I then enter / save the data from the PDF's (say, 4 death index records) and then close AS so that I can check / modify the records that have been created in FH (primarily because AS does not accept entry of the quarter date that is used in the GRO index and I like to have these in FH).

Normally this works fine, but I have had a couple of instances now where AS throws up a message after I have saved, say, three of my records, saying that the "... Gedcom file has been changed outside of AS and will be reloaded" - I just hit the OK button (the only option button available). After this I carry on entering any remaining records, save the data and close AS. On returning to FH, it says that a refresh is required as the Gedom has changed, etc. When I check FH I find that the records input / saved the message was shown in AS do not appear in FH, although those entered in AS afterwards are okay.

Just wondering if there is some sort of caching going on here that is getting out of sync because of the refreshes?. I have "Automatic Snapshot Management" and "Enable Autosave" on within FH. For info, I am using the latest versions of AS and FH under Windows 10.

I've had similar problems in the past and worked around it by only entering one item (census, birth etc) into AS, saving it, switching to view FH, wait for it to show the message about the Gedcom being changed, click to reload the data into FH, then go back to AS and click to reload there. Then enter the next item.

If you don't reload both FH and AS each time they sometimes seems to get out of step and don't save the data. I've also noticed that the reload FH warning message sometimes gets hidden behind other windows, and you have to hunt for it.

It is good that you use the Plugin to invoke AS from FH as that ensures they both use the same Project Gedcom.

It is unlikely that Enable Autosave is the culprit, otherwise more users would have had the symptoms, because it has existed in FH for many years.

Automatic Snapshot Management is more likely, as it was only added to FH in V6.1.4 in Feb 2016, and AS V5.1.3 was released in March 2016, so not much overlap for testing that combination.

Try temporarily disabling Automatic Snapshot Management to see if the problem goes away.

AS saves a Gedcom copy in its Backup folder whenever Save is used, so you should be able to reinstate the missing updates by performing a File > Merge/Compare File with one of the earlier AS Backup Gedcoms.

Thanks Mike - I'll try turning the Snapshot function off and see how that goes. Fortunately (!), the problem does not occur too often so it might be a while before I can determine if this has resolved the problem.

Nick Walker may want to comment on the fact that AS only accepts unqualified simple Dates rather than the full variety of Date formats allowed by FH/GEDCOM, especially the Quarter Dates. I am a little surprised that has not been mentioned before!

AS wasn't really meant to be used for entering from BMD indexes but actually I did add support for Quarter Dates to AS (for all source types except Census) a couple of months ago - I just haven't released it yet because I wanted to add another feature before I did but then haven't had any time for development since.

The symptoms you've mentioned where a change in AS is missed suggests that FH has saved in the background overwriting the changes in AS. If you are certain you've saved in FH before swapping to AS and then later AS reports that the file has been modified then it looks like a bug because FH shouldn't be re-saving the file unless you've made changes in FH and as Mike says snapshots are a potential culprit.

I know that Family Historian frequently misses that the file has been saved (disclaimer: I've not tested most recent FH update)- I do a lot of testing and see this a lot If I minimise and then maximise FH again it spots the change and reloads. I haven't seen any instances of AS missing FH saves.

Nick,

Just something to throw in to the mix. Are the hints regarded as changes by the FH snapshot? I wonder if FH is checking in the background and changes a ? to a green number if that triggers this anomaly?

AS is checking the timestamp on the GEDCOM file. If the date/time changes this indicates the file has been updated and AS reloads the file. If FH is updating the file in the background following a save then this would mean that AS could only be safely used if FH was closed. I've not seen evidence of this happening when I've been using FH so I think this would be unlikely. The snapshot feature however is very new and I've not tried that yet.

I don't think hints are a cause, because they do not affect the Gedcom file, and only Gedcom file changes matter.

I think the Plugin checks for unsaved changes, and won't proceed without them being saved, but will double check tomorrow.

When AS is started via the plugin, I often get the "you need to save your data" message from FH before it will start AS, so things are up to date at that stage. I also minimise FH as AS starts to ensure I don't accidentally click on the window while I'm working in AS and trigger the "gedcom has been changed" prompt from FH.

When doing Batch entries in AS I always disable autosave in FH (I have snapshot disabled as well) as I used to get your symptoms because the FH autosave was upsetting things.