Example of Confounding Behavior When Changing Views

I talk a great deal about how confounding RM8’s behavior is when changing views. It often puts a different person than expected into the primary position of the new view when changing views. This issue often don’t seem to be repeatable, so I decided to start documenting them when they are repeatable.

For this one, I had to make a video. It’s longer than I would prefer at 3:04, but there wasn’t a good way to make it shorter. I made a new RM8 database from RM7. That’s where the time comes from. The main view was Pedigree View with the default person as the root person coming over from RM7. I selected a different person from the Index in the side bar, and the newly selected person was in the primary person in Pedigree view. I changed to Family View, and the root person and his family took over family view. I lost sight of the newly selected person and family.

The link is Changing Views Loses Sight of Family

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I’m not able to recreate that.

This scenario is quite specific to creating a new RM8 database by importing from an existing RM7 database and then changing views as described. Is that what you tried?

The strangeness I see in changing views seems to happen a lot, but the strangeness often is not repeatable. This particular scenario is one that for my data at least has seemed quite repeatable.

Yes, I created a new RM8 database and imported an existing RM7 database.
I changed the views as in your video and don’t see the same strangeness.
I changed from 5 to 6 generations; tried unclearing the search and not clearing the search; tried searching doing a Ctlr+F search rather the side panel - and still do not see that problem you see.
I’m also using a new Windows 10 machine.

Do you have the problem only on one particular person?

I just ran a series of tests with several different people. The problem happened on everybody I tested with.

#1 The same test as in my video, just to make sure it still gives the same results as before. I searched out the child Verna Keith in the sidebar index, clicked her name to giver her the highlight, and switched views. It went back to the original person Alva Edward Peters, same results as before.

#2 The same test as in my video where I search out the child Verna Keith in the sidebar index and gave her the highlight. But before changing views, I highlighted Verna’s father Omer Keith in the view . Upon switching views, it went back to the original person Alva Edward Peters, same results as before.

#3 Similar test as in my video except that I searched William Harley Bryan in the sidebar index and gave him the highlight. He is in a totally different line of people and has parents, spouses, and children unlike the child I was using before who only had parents. Upon switching views, it went back to the original person Alva Edward Peters, same results as before.

#4 Similar test as in my video except that I searched Ernest Lester Peters in the sidebar index and gave him the highlight. He was the son of Alva Edward Peters, and so was in the same screen within a view. Upon switching views, it went back to the original person Alva Edward Peters, same results as before.

I don’t know if this exhausts all the possible possibilities, but with all the different people I tested with, the results are the same. This kind of strangeness happens to me all the time, but mostly it seems pretty random and is definitely not repeatable. To achieve this degree of repeatability I need to run the test by starting out with a newly imported database. I’m hoping to find other scenarios that are repeatable in my database, but this is the only repeatable scenario so far.

I see the same behavior as Jerry describes.
But only if I do it directly after having imported from RM7.
If I redo the same a 2nd time, it does not happen anymore.
If I redo the same thing a 2nd or 3rd time the views change as expected, everything is ok.

There seem to be a number of funnies that happen after you first import an RM7 database. I’ve already reported getting unasked for webhints - from websites you don’t want then from - that then disappear after exiting and re-opening.

We just have to keep chipping away, though I suppose when we take the big leap - to RM8 full time - these on-first-importing oddities won’t be worrying us anymore. So, we need to get them fixed whilst they are still occurring as they may well be masking other more longer term issues.

Same for me as far as being repeatable. But I get the same behavior randomly and intermittently at other times where it is not repeatable. I’m hanging on to this one repeatable case in hopes that it might be a clue to the non-repeatable cases.

If one closes the RM8 file immediately after import from RM7, then reopens the RM8 file, then there is no strange behavior, but everything is fine.
So it has something to do with not complete import from RM7.
RM8 anyhow always needs quite some time to close file. There seems to be quite some post-processing to the database when closing.

I imported a new RM7 file into RM8 and tried the steps by Jerry. I now see the same problem. When going from Pedigree view to Family View, the focus changed to the root person that was set in the RM7 database.

Trying a second time, there was no problem.