All Data Gone – Can't Restore

[Mark White]

I see from the other posts that this appears to be a known issue. My computer shut down unexpectedly and now when I open the database I had been working on everything is gone. I used Time Machine to find an earlier version of the database and copied it into the TapForms storage location, but when I try to open that it’s empty too. I tried to restore from the last TapForms archive, but that ends up empty too. How do I get my data back?

[Brendan]

Hi Mark,

I’m sorry for this problem. Tap Forms 5.1 should fix the power failure issue. I’m sending it to Apple for review this week. It was an issue deep down in the database framework that Tap Forms uses for reading and writing to the database. After the 5.1 update this issue should no longer happen.

Perhaps you’ve still been opening up the damaged file instead of the properly restored file?

Try going back further in Time Machine to make sure that you get a good file. If you’ve been syncing with Cloudant then all your data should just come back from whatever the last successfully saved point in time was. If you have the document synced to another device you could also just send it back to your Mac from there.

Again, I’m sorry for this problem.

Brendan

[Mark White]

Hi Brendan,

I’ve tried 4 different versions of the file, going further back in time. Every one of them acts the same way – when I open it I get a blank screen that says no form selected and a “new form” button. Everything worked fine before the computer shutdown on April 21. But even my backup from April 8 won’t open. Am I doing something wrong? I’m just restoring the file to it’s original location and then opening it with TapForms. Each time I do this, the file date and time updates, so it’s opening the file and changing something, but nothing shows up.

Thanks,
Mark

[Brendan]

Do you have all the categories expanded? I’ve seen it before where someone didn’t know that the forms were under the categories or that the forms list on the left was collapsed.

Are you restoring with Time Machine? Or are you using Tap Forms backups? If you’re using Tap Forms backups, try deleting the existing file first, then use the Restore command.

[Mark White]

I tried once to restore an older Tap Forms archive, and many times using a Time machine backup. I tried deleting the old one first with Time Machine, and even tried deleting and re-installing Tap Forms.

I’ve clicked on everything that seems potentially helpful – the screen looks like the attached picture. This is a small database, about 20 or 25 records, with 3 different saved layouts. It includes about a dozen photos.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Brendan]

Hi Mark,

Ya, you should see something there.

Do you have the document on any other device? You could always transfer it over to your Mac from another Mac or an iOS device. But Time Machine should work too. Not sure why it’s not working for you.

[Mark White]

I’ve recovered some of the data from an archive that was about two weeks old. I’ll have to recreate everything that was added since then. Since I am unable to open 4 different versions of the file that I recovered from Time Machine, I believe that Tap Forms had been saving a corrupted file every time I made a change, but I never knew it because I never opened the saved file – I just left it running all that time and added things now and then. The problem didn’t appear until the computer shut down, and then it couldn’t open the current file or any recent Time machine backups.

Have you seen anything like this before?

[Brendan]

I suppose it’s possible that because you never quit Tap Forms until the power failure that Time Machine hadn’t been backing up the open db.sqlite file that Tap Forms opens up when you open a document.

Tap Forms 5.1 has a change that I made to the database engine I use to prevent the corruption from happening due to a power failure.

But it might be good anyway to quit Tap Forms from time to time to give Time Machine a chance to backup the db.sqlite file within each of your .tapforms document files.

[Mark White]

So when does that file get closed? Is it when you close the database, or when you quit Tap Forms?

[Brendan]

When you close the document that file gets closed. And also when you quit Tap Forms.

[Mark White]

Thanks Brendan. I had done neither for quite some time before this happened. I’ll start closing the file periodically to force it to save and backup.

[Author]

Posts