Disappearing sources

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 29 Aug 2005 17:10

Hello, I wonder if someone can help? When I switched on my computer this afternoon and loaded up Family Historian, I discovered that all my notes and sources have disappeared. I was using the program with no difficulty this morning, and saved and exited as usual with no problem. However, the notes and sources from one of my two FH files (the one I've been using) have disappeared. Is this a bug anyone's aware of? How might I have inadvertently 'lost' them? Please help!

Kirsty

ID:1022

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 29 Aug 2005 20:12

Any chance you have been doing any split tree work.

I have never lost any data using FH, not even beta versions.

Also have you used any other programs with your gedfile?

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 31 Aug 2005 07:43

Hi Jane, thanks for your speedy response. I've never used any other program with my gedfile, beyond saving reports into Word - but even that I haven't done for a few weeks. I don't know what split tree work is, so certainly haven't been doing it knowingly, but I will go in now and read up on it. If that were somehow to be the case, how should I go about trying to restore the info? The notes and sources are still gone, btw.

Thanks again,
Kirsty

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 31 Aug 2005 08:39

Why not restore a backup?

You could always merge it back to the existing one.

Did you have any errors when saving at all?

The only other thing I can think is that you ran out of disk space or had a disk error and the file got truncated.

Post by **SimonOrde** » 31 Aug 2005 09:30

Kirsty

I've never heard of anything like this happening. Which version of Family Historian are you using? If you're not sure, click on About Family Historian on the Help menu.

Incidentally, Jane, if F.H. can't save because its run out of disk space, it won't do a partial save. The entire save will fail and your file be left unchanged - i.e. as it was the last time you successfully saved.

Post by **SimonOrde** » 31 Aug 2005 09:36

Kirsty

another thought: are you quite sure that you haven't somehow opened an old file by mistake? If you click on the 'Update' column in the Records Window, it will sort on last-updated date. When was the last update of an Individual record? (if you have done any updates since you discovered the problem, you should ignore these of course). Is it possible that this is an old file that you are looking at?

Also, you say that notes and sources have disappeared? Do you maintain sources as source records? (this is the default if you don't do anything special). What did you do to confirm that all you sources have gone? Have you tried clicking on View > Record Lists > Sources? If so, is there anything there?

What did you do to confirm that all your notes had gone? If you clicked on View > Record Lists > Notes, bear in mind that this only shows notes that are stored as Note records - i.e. the note has a record of its own. And most notes aren't like that.

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 31 Aug 2005 10:17

Hi Simon, Jane, and thanks again for the speedy reply.
I'm using version 2.2.

I checked for last updates, and the individual entries I entered on the morning of the 29th are there, as is the one I was working on on the afternoon of the 29th when I discovered the problem - so it's not an old version. All the primary information I entered is still there. However, the source records (which is how I stored source info) are gone - when I click on View > Records lists > Sources, it says 'No source records'. The same happens with the notes that I had saved as note records (tho' as you say, there were fewer of these).

My backup has most, although not all, of the information on it and I can easily merge the two. But I'm worried that this (whatever it is) will happen again!

I've checked the memory on my hard drive and there's plenty available.

Help!
Kirsty

Family Historian User Group