All Flashcards / Userdict lost!

[gandq]

Mike!

I had to hard reset my Treo recently and now all flashcards and my extensive user dictionary are gone!
I had migrated to PD2 some time ago (Beta 6, I think) and continued to build and use my flashcard database.

Of course I backed up all contents of my Treo before I did the hard reset, but these files seemingly haven't been backed up (I use a program called "CardBackup"). The files were in internal memory. PD2 settings and preferences were restored correctly.

Can you please tell me how PD2 names these files so that I can look for them? Are they normal PDBs? Is it possible that my backup program didn't copy them because of their attributes or something (hidden files etc.)? Hotsync Backup also doesn't seem to have made andy copies of them...

Man, I hope I can find those files.

Thanks for a short reply,


jo.

 

[ipsi]

Unfortunately, they're not normal PDB files, and they're located in your devices (hidden) internal memory. Flashcard Filename would be PlecoFlash.pqb, I believe. They won't have been backed up by your hotsync, and would probably have been removed when you did a hard-reset...

You can use FileZ or PlecoMover to see if they're still there but I have a bad feeling they're not.

Maybe someone else can offer a ray of hope, but I'm afraid I can't see anything you can do.

 

[goog1e]

I don't have any experience with palm devices but I can sympathize. On Monday morning, I connected my iPaq to my work computer for the first time in several weeks. It synchronized and what happened? ActiveSync replaced my new flashcard files with the last synchronized copy -- also several weeks old

I had been adding ~10 cards a day and doing ~100+ reps a day -- what a bummer. I spent Monday night just sitting there trying to remember as many of my words as I possibly could. I'm now convinced to back my flashcard file up regularly (probably manually too).

I hope you can figure something out, but if not, 加油

 

[thph2006]

Sorry if this is a dumb noob question. Is this a Palm only issue or Pleco in general? I'll be receiving my new IPAQ 211 and PD 2.0 in a few days and will want to convert my own flashcards and dictionary entries into PD. Is there a way to store them on the IPAQ that will allow me to do a comprehensive backup of all my data as it expands and avoid this issue altogether? I'd appreciate advice on how to get it right the first time.
thanks, tom

 

[goog1e]

Sorry if this is a dumb noob question. Is this a Palm only issue or Pleco in general? I'll be receiving my new IPAQ 211 and PD 2.0 in a few days and will want to convert my own flashcards and dictionary entries into PD. Is there a way to store them on the IPAQ that will allow me to do a comprehensive backup of all my data as it expands and avoid this issue altogether? I'd appreciate advice on how to get it right the first time.
thanks, tom

If I am understanding things correctly, gandq did a hard reset of their palm (equivalent to a "format and reinstall") on a PC and their backup program failed to backup the flashcard file. It shouldn't be Pleco-related at all.

My mistake (using an iPaq and WM) was that I assumed that when you set up file synchronization with ActiveSync (what comes with iPaqs and Windows Mobile devices in general) is that you would update the PC with the latest mobile device version. However, the default on my installation seems to have been giving the PC version precedence. I found an option on my handheld that defines whether or not to overwrite files if there is a conflict but I haven't had time to mess with it yet to configure correctly. I've just turned all synching off for now while I work on my flashcard repetitions.

 

[mikelove]

gandq - yeah, unfortunately it sounds like the files were lost; they're not stored as a regular PDB (too unstable) but instead are stored in a special hidden internal drive on your Palm. The Palm OS installation manual has a whole section on Backing Up and Restoring Your Data - sorry that wasn't available earlier on in the beta-test.

thph2006 - there's a similar guide in the Windows Mobile installation manual here - basically it's just a couple of files in the My Documents folder that you need to back up.

 

[gandq]

Hidden files? No kidding? Damn!

I'm glad my examns are over and I'm not that dependent on PD's flashcard feature anymore. I'll just have to do a reimport and start over again from there. Still, this really is a huge bummer. PDBs might be unstable, but hidden files are, well, hidden and thus can get lost much easier, as my example has shown. Anyway, I know what a pain the Palm version has been for you, so there surely is a good reason why PD uses hidden files.

Apart from that, my Treo is slowly but surely dying and has to be replaced sometime soon. Since nothing new is on the horizon palm-wise, I can only hope the iPhone version is making quick progress. And Mike - Please make sure there will be an automatic backup feaure for that version! :wink:

Cheers,


jo.

 

[radioman]

Probably stating the obvious, but I have my flashcards on the external card on my Palm E2, along with most of the Pleco files except the ones that HAVE to be on the device. every so often I just pull the card out and copy it's complete contents to my laptop. (I have about 500 Mb used on a 1 Gb card.)

With this configuration, Pleco seems to run plenty fast enough. And having the back up has saved me more than once.

 

[mikelove]

gandq - yeah, very sorry about that; we made the change from PDBs to hidden internal files in mid-Beta-7 but probably should have been more explicit about announcing it. You can actually still store the files as PDBs if you use PlecoMover to convert them to those (or delete them and then configure 2.0 to store them that way in the "Search Paths" screen), but we default to the internal volume both for stability and file-corruption reasons; having a file get randomly screwed-up by a bad database write (as happened regularly with PDBs) seems like an even worse problem than having it not back up automatically.

We've got a lot of ideas for backups with the iPhone version; there may even be an online backup system for them, actually, perhaps for some nominal fee (say $5 or $10 per year) to cover the hosting costs.

radioman - yes, that varies a bit depending on the system / memory card type but in a lot of cases SD card storage works quite well and provides you with extra protection even if your Palm goes completely haywire.

 

[gato]

having a file get randomly screwed-up by a bad database write (as happened regularly with PDBs) seems like an even worse problem than having it not back up automatically.

It seems like the tradeoff is between file corruption and restore to last hotsync vs. hard reset and restore to last PlecoMover backup. The relative likelihood of file corruption and hard resets, and how often people will do hotsyncs and PlecoMove backups, would need to be weighed. When flashcards were hotsynchable, the backup was more or less automatic upon a hotsync, though a lot of people don't hotsync on a regular basis. Now people will need to actively remember to back up their card using PlecoMover (which I think is easier to forget).

I think you might consider moving PlecoMover into the main Pleco program as a menu item. This way, it'll be easier for people to remember to back up. Even better might be to have an option to automatically run the backup function upon Pleco start up at a regular interval (which can default to once every week or so).

 

[sych]

On my system, PlecoMover doesn't take very long at all to copy the flashcards DB to PDB, so personally I'd favor having an automatic copy to PDB at the end of every Flashcard session. The user dict DB could perhaps be backed up at first run every day, if any entries were added/changed.

Palm users really expect the HotSync backs up everything.

 

[mikelove]

gato - I'd say at this point the majority of Pleco Palm users don't HotSync regularly, at least judging by the tech support e-mail we get; there's also no guarantee that the HotSync will be successful or up-to-date, people cancel them or the connection fails somewhere or they've got some partially-installed files jamming things up and preventing the sync from completing correctly and they end up with their only backup being 6 months old. So HotSync can't really be viewed as a reliable backup solution regardless, at least not for people who aren't consciously aware of it and regularly making / verifying backups.

Building PlecoMover into the main application unfortunately won't work because it can't really manipulate those files while the main application is using them; we'd need to add a whole bunch of code to carefully unload / back up / reopen them and that introduces the possibility of more bugs / problems / etc. Certainly something we can try if we end up releasing 2.1 on Palm but not really within the realm of what's possible in a bug-fix update. Adding an alarm / reminder / automated backup function to PlecoMover is a better bet, though with that there's still the problem of having two rather-large copies of the same flashcard file taking up space in people's internal memory - another few MB of backup files could push people into out-of-memory error territory.

The flashcard / user database situation on Palm just isn't that great, honestly - it's the single biggest reason why it took us so long to get 2.0 ready and it's also the biggest argument for discontinuing Palm support in future releases. I'm absolutely convinced the move to SQLite is the right thing for Pleco long-term, but there are certainly some short-term tradeoffs.

sych - it can take a lot longer on some people's systems, unfortunately; there's also the issue of out-of-memory errors that I mentioned above.

 

[sych]

I sync at least once a day, but I might be atypical. On the other hand, support requestees may also be atypical at the other end of the spectrum

I recently visited the Palm website to download an OS update, and the instructions told me to hotsync before the update to backup my data (as the new OS install will erase everything first). If I didn't know about Pleco's usage of the hidden internal storage, I would have lost my Pleco data if I'd only followed Palm's instructions. At least as far as I'm concerned, Palm has cultivated a belief that hotsyncing backs up everything... so I am afraid other people are going to get bitten by this.

Another option besides those already canvassed might be to write a conduit... I don't suppose that's something you'd enjoy doing, though!

 

[mikelove]

Well we did add that "how to backup" section to the installation manual, so I'm hoping between that and the flashcard system intro most people will find out about PlecoMover one way or another. I agree it's a less-than-perfect solution, but after all of the bug reports / corrupted files from storing flashcards in those highly-unreliable NVFS PDBs it seemed like the only good way to proceed.

Writing a conduit is a definite no-go at this point - unlikely even on WM, actually, since nowadays it makes a lot more sense to do that sort of thing through online sync. (even online sync is unlikely to happen on Palm, though)

 

[sthubbar]

Aiya! This is really disturbing to me.

I am a heavy user of Pleco's flashcard system and using 1.0.3 I would estimate that I have lost my flashcards at least 50 times. After the first 15 times or so, I became paranoid so that during flashcard sessions, I will perform a system backup several times during the session.

Now I found out that performing a system backup (using BackupMan) will not backup Pleco 2.0's flashcards.

Even if I don't manually do the backup, BackupMan will automatically do a daily backup, so the most I will usually lose will be one day's work.

Having to run a seperate program to backup the flashcards, is highly unlikely to happen. As an example, it has probably been 5 months since Ihave HotSync'd my Treo because there is some problem with the syncing. I am not too concerned because I do regularly backup to SDCard and then occasionally copy that card to my PC.

To have to try and remember to regularly run a seperate PlecoMover program is quite a pain.

I sure hope some of the suggestions like having the program automatically making a .pdb backup upon closing or having PlecoMover being able to be scheduled is possible.

 

[mikelove]

I don't know if we're likely to add automated backup anytime soon, but if you use PlecoMover in Advanced mode to move (rather than simply back up) your flashcard database to PDB, Pleco will access its flashcards quite happily from there and that database would be backed up on every HotSync (or by any other utility that backs up all of your PDBs).

The reason we don't use that by default is that it tends to be quite a bit slower and also less stable - if there's anything at all wrong with a Palm's internal memory hardware it seems to be exacerbated by having a flashcard database accessed there as a PDB (we're really pushing Palm hardware far beyond where it was designed to go), so you can run into a more database corruption / crashes with databases there than you do with them stored in the hidden internal drive.

I think there may be one or two Palm OS backup utilities that can back up the hidden internal drive too, though - search around and you might find one.

 

[sthubbar]

Awesome. So it is possible to force Pleco to use a regular .PDB file and no functionality is lost, just maybe less stable.

I'm definitely going to op for the less stable option, with frequent backups.

 

[mikelove]

Yes, we should probably note that in a more prominent spot in the manual actually since I imagine a number of people might want to make that switch.