[GraemeJ]

It's four in the morning and I'm sitting here wondering what the hell has gone wrong?

I appear to have lost everything!!!!!

I made some minor changes to setlists, etc. and added a couple of new charts and then, using Companion, did a backup. I then restored that backup to the tablet. The restore failed - since I had elected to use the default 'erase everything' I then had nothing on the tablet.

I tried restoring the previous backup - and that failed as well. In fact, all the backups I had have failed. 2,000+ charts (and any associated audio files ) vanished without trace.

I AM NOT A HAPPY BUNNY!!

Too late to do anything about it now, but it looks like I'm going to have a busy weekend sorting out this mess. I can not, for the life of me, figure out why this has happened? I've gone through exactly the same process dozens of times in the past with no problems at all.

[Zubersoft]

Graeme,

I'll definitely help you get this sorted ASAP. Does the size of the backup generated by the companion seem to be a valid size? Try force closing MS Pro before attempting the restore again to ensure that no files are locked.

Mike

[Rey_a]

Graeme,
As you currently have 2 tablets, you could probably take a local backup (not using companions) on the tablet where the data is still ok. Then transfer that backup file to the problem tablet (sd card or such) and then do a local restore there.
Depending if the backup file from companion was ok or not, you could also try transferring that file to the problemtablet and trying a local restore there ...

Hope you get this recovered quickly!

[sciurius]

I have a tool that extracts the database and all the songs from the msb backup file. It may help.

[bumblebee]

I would uninstall MS, shut down, then startup the tablet, then install, before restoring from any backup because something might have been corrupted, perhaps inadvertently locking the database file so you cannot see anything.
If you happen to have even another tablet without MS on, install MS and test one of the backup files.
Best wishes.
I have a backup tablet as you do, because I never trust them. I also have a small number of paper copies that will get me through if needed. Usually they are in the car if I'm driving to a gig just in case.

[GraemeJ]

Graeme,

I'll definitely help you get this sorted ASAP. Does the size of the backup generated by the companion seem to be a valid size? Try force closing MS Pro before attempting the restore again to ensure that no files are locked.

Mike

Thanks for the support Mike (and everyone else). I'll play around with it later today and see if I can sort it out.

I do have a backup tablet, plus another two tablets here (that do not have MS installed, but that's a matter of moments). However, I want to see what can be achieved without involving any of them. Someone else, with only a single device to hand, could run into the same problem and it would be good to know if a solution can be found under that circumstance.

To answer Mike's specific question, the size of the latest backup file is as I would expect it to be, so I'm pretty certain that it's intact and the problem lies in either Companion or the app itself.

I'll post more when I know more.

[GraemeJ]

I have a tool that extracts the database and all the songs from the msb backup file. It may help.

I might be calling on you for that . Does it also extract the audio files? Although these are not so important to me (they're there for rehearsal purposes only, not used on gigs) someone using MS for backing tracks could be in real trouble if the same thing happened to them.

Thinking about it, that sounds to be a very useful tool, would you consider making it available to the forum generally?

[sciurius]

The MSPro backup file (MSB) file is a simple archive that starts with the database, and then all the data files (PDF, audio, etc). My tool extracts the database and all data files.
However, I haven't found out the role of every other bit and byte that's in the backup file, so I must be careful to position it as a 'general use' tool.
I do wonder why Mike didn't choose for the simple and elegant (and open!) zip format.

If you want you can send me your backup so I can see how far it gets... (and probably improve it on the fly).

[GraemeJ]

Well, all is calm here once more.

Like bumblebee, my first thought was to uninstall MSPro, re-install and then try to import the backup (through Companion) - so I did that.

I elected to use the default storage area (normally, I keep everything on the external card) and apart from the long time it takes to move 1.5+ Gb of data around, it worked like a dream - just as you would expect.

As I was on a roll (I was happy to get all this stuff back, I wasn't going to worry about where it had been stored) I then tried a re-install to the default external card location - and that worked as well - big grins all round.

What went wrong, I have no idea. Obviously, something got corrupted, but I don't know what or why - I had done nothing unusual to think it was something I had caused. As a beta tester, I've probably mucked around with this app a lot more than many users and it has never done this to me before. I guess it will remain one of life's little mysteries.

One feature (which others have already asked for and I can only agree with them) would have made it just a little easier - incorporate the settings file in the backup. Although not hard to do, trawling through it and trying to remember exactly how I had it tailored to my needs, is a bit of a PITA.

[GraemeJ]

The MSPro backup file (MSB) file is a simple archive that starts with the database, and then all the data files (PDF, audio, etc). My tool extracts the database and all data files.
However, I haven't found out the role of every other bit and byte that's in the backup file, so I must be careful to position it as a 'general use' tool.
I do wonder why Mike didn't choose for the simple and elegant (and open!) zip format.

If you want you can send me your backup so I can see how far it gets... (and probably improve it on the fly).

Thank you for your generous offer but, as you will have seen from the above ost, I have got it sorted now.

It still seems that you have developed a useful tool - one that could be of benefit to MS users. Maybe you could collaborate with Mike and get it to a proper release stage?

[bumblebee]

Good to hear you have it restored Graeme!
Sometimes glitches occur and it is not certain it is the software itself or some OS weird thing. Let's hope it never happens again. In the past I have had corrupted files using various software but difficult to track down what happened. Once you restore, it is such a relief.

Thanks for reporting here also, so we can keep an eye out for it. I knew you would know things to do to try restoring, but others might come across something similar and this thread might become helpful.

[sciurius]

As a general advice: Make backups. Always. Use independent backup programs and store the backups off-line (better still, off-site).
If you can (or dare) root your tablet, TitaniumBackup is the ultimate choice. You can make individual backups of a single app + all its data and settings, keep multiple versions and restore selectively.

[itsme]

My settings are 'Let Mobile Sheets Manage My Files' OFF and 'Expose Database File' ON.
My score files are in a folder _MobileSheets within alfabetic subfolders A to Z. A mirror of this files and folders structure is on my PC that is synchronized with TeamDrive to all my bandmates and on a USB stick. 
So in case of an emergency I can navigate to the files pretty quick and open the PDFs with another PDF reader. For ChordPro files I still have Chordinator on my tablet, I think I will keep it.
By far not as fast and comfortable as using MSP, but I could get through.
And there's my binder as a paper backup, but this will soon be outdated.
Together with the .MSB backup files I copy the MSP database files to my PC.
My settings are written down manually in a text file that is on the tablet and imported into MSP.
Hope that I'm prepared for many cases...

[sciurius]

It still seems that you have developed a useful tool - one that could be of benefit to MS users. Maybe you could collaborate with Mike and get it to a proper release stage?

I would definitely appreciate input from Mike. But if he wants to keep the MSPro internals hidden I can understand. Opening internals means that people are going to fiddle with things they should leave alone, leading to all kinds of strange errors that Mike is going to be blamed for...

[Zubersoft]

I'm happy to share the internals of the .msb file structure with you if you want to develop that tool further. It's not too complicated. I'll send you a PM with the details if you would like.

As far as why I didn't just use the ZIP file format, my concern was the loss in speed due to compression and any other overhead due to the zip file specification. In my testing, compressing PDFs and image files does very little, so I didn't want the backup/restore process to be slower for no gain. I realize now that this was probably unnecessary, as it is possible to use zip files with no compression. I just looked at zip4j, and it seems like this would make it pretty easy to create a backup file in a zip file format. I think I will add this as an enhancement - the choice to back up to a zip file or msb file. I could also then offer the ability to compress for those that want it.

Mike