Serious Show Stopper!

[Gene FitzPatrick]

I am talking about the backup/restore function. Whether using the A5 menu choice to backup/restore the data files only or a full backup, a restore results in missing files and files of the wrong sizes and incomplete names. I let Selwyn and company know about this yesterday. Sure hope for a fix soon. Anyway, the issue seems to be tied to an improper Zip or Unzip or both. This is true whether using the menu function or the Xbasic commands. So please be aware that this issue may cause your application to become trash if you have the need to restore your files. I did find that using the backup/restore works fine with PDF files, just not at all with files located in the application directories.

[Ronald Anusiewicz]

What version and build number of alpha are you using. I use the built in backup and have never had any issues.

[Gene FitzPatrick]

Hi Ron,

Developer version 12.4.6.5.2 Build 8867

Have you ever tried to restore any of the zip files? The zipping and unzipping shows no errors, except for the no access crash sometimes when it is trying to write to a log file. The only way you would know that there is a problem is if you restore something and compare the file sizes and names to the original files. They differ in size and the extensions are missing on some files.

Having said that, I just unzipped a couple of files and they look OK. I hate sometimes errors, don't you?

Perhaps the problems I noticed had to do with an interruption caused by the log file access rights error? I do not know.

Anyone else notice? Perhaps the advice becomes check the files on a restore if there is a log file access error during the process.

Oy!

[Ronald Anusiewicz]

Hello Gene,

I asked about the version and build as it appears you are running the current (?) build and this post is in the Version 11 section of this message board.

In your initial post, you seem to be using the term backup/restore interchangeably with zip/unzip. I’m not sure but I do not think they are not the same even though they each have a .zip file extention.

Tools -> Zip workspace creates a zip file. To restore a zip file, one must unzip said file.

Tools -> Backup/Restore Workspace -> Backup Workspace backs up the selected files.

To restore a backup file, I always use Tools -> Backup/Restore Workspace -> Restore Workspace.

In my applications, I use the latter all the time without any issues. I use this to backup files and update changes to the app. I could be wrong but I know what works for me.

That said, no, I’m not using the latest build.

I hope this helps.

[Ted Giles]

I agree with Ron.
Creating a zip is one way of transporting an app. It is not the same as a backup. I use zips as release numbers .
Backup/Restore is an "in app" facility to set a timeline you wish to get back to. As in when your changes don't work as expected. Effectively a roll back.

[Gene FitzPatrick]

Thanks Ron and Ted. How would one access the backup and restore functions using xbasic? What I am trying to accomplish is an act of convenience for the end user. I would like to have a button on the "backup" form that uses the directory information stored in a dbf for the "where to" argument and the list of dbf, cdx and fpt files for the where from argument. This is something I have done in the past but now when restoring the data, whether through the Alpha menu or otherwise, all files appear OK except every cdx file name is broken. The filename myfile.cdx is changed to myfile for every cdx file.

I tried to zip the file list and restore the files after the installation. That gave me the same results.

[Gene FitzPatrick]

When doing a backup of the "data files only", the files with the extensions dbf, cdx and fpt are selected. My understanding was that restoring the data files would bring back all records written at the time of the backup. This is not true. To prove my understanding wrong, I backed up all data files then opened the application and made another entry. Then I restored the data files and the entry I added after the backup was still there.

However, my experience doing the same thing but backing up all files, making a change and restoring all files gave me what I would expect. The bogus entry I made after backing up everything was not restored. This leads me to believe that backing up data files does not back up the user entries. Seems like a contradiction to what one might expect.

So my question is what files should be added to the dbf, cdx and fpt files in order to truly backup and be able to restore all the user entries?

Thanks.

[Gene FitzPatrick]

Hey gang!

I think I stumbled on my errors! First of all, my version of Build on my build machine was current but my version of Runtime on my runtime machine was not. Updating my Runtime version helped.

The second issue was that although I set the restore maintain path in the unzip command to true, the files were opened in the directory where the zip file was located. I thought that setting that flag to true would place the files into their original location given the fact that every filename was complete from the C: on down. That is apparently not the case. When I copied the files from their zip location to the application directory, everything looked good. I do not see why the files did not end up in their original location though.

The third piece of education is that apparently the fact that the cdx file names do not match the original file names is irrelevant. That is a surprise to me.

It does appear that using the xbasic zip and unzip works. That is a good thing because I do not want the users to have access to the control panel.

[Gene FitzPatrick]

Never mind gang. The reason the backup data files only did not appear to work on my runtime machine was because the version of runtime was not current.