According to a reply from the @rootsmagician to this post in the Facebook group, do not run the Relationship Chart report else you will lose data you subsequently add or edit in that session on closing the database…
EDIT: updated to reflect that the data loss is only that added or edited after exiting the Relationship Chart report.
Thanks for sharing @TomH for those of us who do not/will not use social media
The 25th of November I reported to Support:
One of our members in the usergroup wrote to me:
“I have a problem with RM. Try this.
Select : Relationship Cart and generate a report. Close the Relationship Chart and go back and add a new person.
Close RM. Open RM and the last data is not recorded.
At the same time, you can look at the extra file next to the data file that disappears when you close RM.”
I have tested this twice. Both times it happened. After closing the Relation chart, I registered additional children in the family. After this I closed RM, started up again and then the child I registered is not there. Can’t find the one on the Person list.
If I added a source reference, closed and started, then the children were there.
As usual, Renee was on to it at the same day answering:
*“*Thank you for these steps. We’ve been trying to narrow down what was causing this loss. I can successfully recreate the issue now and have reported it to development.”
Good reporting. I’ve determined that the Relationship Chart report opens a SQLite BEGIN TRANSACTION on exiting. From that point forward, all data changes are made only to the in-memory database and are not written to the disk file. It also opens a journal file to log all those data change operations. It then requires a COMMIT TRANSACTION to write all the data changes to the disk database but none is issued. On closing the database, the journal file is deleted because the COMMIT was never invoked so there was no error that would have required the journal to rollback any changes that were written. Poof, the in-memory database is gone with all the changes made since the Chart was run.
Great detective work and this explains the higher than normal “loss” by users,
Kevin
@rzamor1 @rootsmagician Why has there been no outreach from RM Inc 4 days after Bruce’s comment in the Facebook Group to warn all users that using the Relationship Chart Report will trigger the loss of all subsequent data additions or changes on closing the database? It warrants a pinned announcement in all RM Inc administered user groups and an email to all registered users and customers.
This is a serious, systemic problem affecting all users of the current version of RM10. Do you know how far back it goes? Could it have started as early as this report was reincarnated after its loss with the RM8 version? If so, then the email distribution should be expanded accordingly. And new customers should be informed of the flaw.
When will an update be released that fixes the problem? Everyone who is aware of it wants to know.
Yes, there will be an update that fixes the issue. Right now the update is not ready for release.
Six days after the RootsMagician’s comment on Facebook that I quoted in the OP of this discussion, Renee posted a new message there announcing that the fix is included in an update to be released Dec 9. I’ve not seen an announcement in this Community nor have I received an email notification.
Many thanks for the update - I think it really poor that RM have failed to circulate a such a critical issue sufficiently.
Thanks again @TomH - it looks as though RM are moving away from support via this forum or by e-mail.
Maybe this is the explanation for the problems I encountered when importing people from Family Search, and then using Tree Share to update Ancestry. I know for certain that people I saw in Roots Magic were disappearing, but I could never re-create it at will. I was told it was impossible for data that’s in RM to disappear, and I even sent a snail mail letter to Bruce (there was no reply) because I could tell that no one was taking me seriously. I used the relationship chart all the time, and it never occurred to me that it might be part of the problem. I’m hoping this upcoming fix will give me confidence to use RM again. I had ceased in my efforts to add all my distant cousins to my database. It was too dispiriting to see them disappear and be unable to convince anyone that there was a problem.
I agree. If TomH hadn’t posted this from the Facebook group I wouldn’t have known about it. I’ve looked at the FB group and I can’t find Bruce’s announcement. I assume it’s because I don’t understand FB. I didn’t realize it was more active than this community’s postings. I guess I’ll have to learn how to use it. First question: How do I tell FB to inform me of updates?
The software bug may well be serious but my principal concern remains the lack of information on this forum or by e-mail. Personally I will continue not to use social media; if that is where support for RM is going then I may not be upgrading next time around.
I recall people saying that back when they stopped putting paper manuals in the software packages and instead started putting PDF files on the install disk, then I heard it again when companies stopped using phone support and went more to online chat and email, and again when companies started social media presences.
…anyway, in my opinion, it isn’t overly disturbing that they didn’t announce it here because people simply don’t pay attention to or bother to search for anything before posting their problem so they probably would not notice of even bother whether it was pinned or not. However some people will get their knickers knotted regardless of how things go.
So basically you are saying this community is a waste of time? Some of us do regularly use it as the main source of information and I think it was very poor that this issue was not publicised sufficiently. You may know everything there is to know about everything, but not all of us do.
I didn’t say anything about knowing it all, now did I? What I said is that a great number of people wouldn’t bother to look to see if there was an announced problem before posting their question for the 107th time, so the fact that it wasn’t posted here isn’t surprising.
I also expressed a wee bit of amusement about all the people that announce that problem x, or problem y is a real deal breaker and they just won’t continue with a product because some small thing bothers them. I even gave you some examples of such.
