* Backup and Restore via Windows: Witness Roles question

[wellera]

Hi both

I'd missed the subtlety of any debatable banter - all went whizzing over my head!

To summarise - I still think there is a "feature" lurking in "Backup and Restore Family Historian via Windows v1.2.1".
Everything ran as expected with Backup and Restore Family Historian v3.5.

I've confirmed with my own testing that if you run a backup, create a new witness role for a standard fact, then restore the backup using the Windows plugin, the witness role is not restored unless you choose the "Discard any changes..." option.

The plugin is therefore behaving exactly as designed. The old plugin checks each file and asks specifically, while the new plugin uses the option set by the user.

If I understand this correctly, it's a slightly different backup/restore scenario than mine.

I was simply taking a backup of my previous PC (with "via Windows" plugin) and restoring to a new installation of FH on the new PC. This failed to carry across witness roles I'd added to standard facts (eg Death). The old plugin carried these across.

The "discard any changes" option on the "via Windows" plugin wasn't checked, as I wanted everything to be updated on the target PC.

I really appreciate the time you've put into checking this out and I'm hoping my feedback might be helpful in case there is an unwanted "feature" in the new via Windows Plugin.

Regards
Andrew

[Mark1834]

Understood - it depends on the relative timestamps of the Fact Set files. My explanation holds if f you made your original customisations on the old PC before CP finalised the Fact Set file included in FH7.0.18. If it was later, something else is lurking in either the plugin or your system setup.

The only way to be sure would be to completely uninstall FH7 from your new PC, delete the remaining ProgramData\Calico Pie\ folder, reinstall FH7 and restore from your original backup with the Discard option selected. I'm not suggesting you do that, as it's a fair bit of work and would blow away all other customisations made on the new PC.

If you are happy that you've got a working system now, we can leave it at that, but this thread will be there in the future if anybody else encounters a similar issue. However, it would be prudent to avoid modifying the standard Fact Sets in the future, but instead clone and edit the clone. It's a bit more work, but it would be more robust to this type of unanticipated effect.

[wellera]

Thanks Mark - much appreciated

Andrew