Unrecognised Files

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 20 Jul 2006 09:00

On opening the gedcom file that I have been working on, I received the message 'unrecognised file format', and the file was not opened.

Going back to a backup (in fact, all of my backups), Family Historian is not recognising any of them, despite there not being a problem with them 3 days ago. They are still gedcom files. There was no indication of any problem when I saved the file.

Any ideas a) what may have happened and b) how i can salvage my file?

Thanks in advance

Kirsty Hooper

ID:1738

Post by **nsw** » 20 Jul 2006 11:19

Hi Kirsty

So to clarify, you are running Family Historian and then clicking on File->Open, selecting a GEDCOM file and then pressing OK, and Family Historian is saying 'Unrecognised File Format'? You are also choosing
File->Backup/Restore->Restore... and selecting a recent backup and Family Historian is again saying Unrecognised File Format?

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 20 Jul 2006 16:44

Hi Nick, thanks for getting back to me. That's yes to your first question. Re: the second, the backups were saved as zips, and it's when accessing them from File->open that they give that message. Will try going via file->backup/restore now and see if it makes any difference.
Kirsty

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 20 Jul 2006 16:56

Yay! going via File->restore works! But do you have any idea why this happened? I would love to avoid this happening in future - it's not the first time I've lost data in this way (I posted in the past about similar problems). I use my laptop all the time and have no problems with other programmes - it really does seem to be something in FH.
Many thanks in advance,
Kirsty

Post by **nsw** » 20 Jul 2006 17:48

Hi

Yes the zipped backups have to be restored through the method I described so glad that worked.

I've no idea why you would be having problems. Are you saving the files to your hard-disk (e.g. C drive) or to a USB/Pen Drive or across a network?

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 21 Jul 2006 08:42

Hi Nick,
I'm saving them to the hard drive and it's seemed straightforward - no warning messages or anything as I save them.
Kirsty

Post by **nsw** » 21 Jul 2006 09:33

I would suggest contacting Calico Pie about this, perhaps sending the corrupted file to them might help to track down what is happening. Another thought, do you embed your images/multimedia in the file or do you link them. How big is your file in bytes and in number of individuals?

lollybird · Post by **lollybird** » 21 Jul 2006 16:10

Thanks, Nick, I'll try getting in touch with them. I only have a tiny number of images and no multimedia, but they are linked not embedded. The file is 706 bytes (I've no idea if this is big or not for a .GED file!).
Best,
Kirsty

Post by **nsw** » 21 Jul 2006 17:38

I'm guessing you mean 706 kilobytes (~706,000 bytes) in which case that is a fairly average sized file I think.

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