Where are the preferences and flashcard data?

[koreth]

I bought a Pre today and in the process of moving my data over from the Treo 650, somehow managed to wipe out my Pleco flashcard data on the Treo. (The Pre migration process had me upgrade my ancient version of Palm Desktop, which decided it didn't like some of the stuff on my Treo because "it might not be compatible with PalmOS 5," as if my phone could even run that OS anyway.) I still have my user dictionary entries, but when I go to the flashcard UI, none of my profiles are listed.

I have recently-backed-up hotsync directories, but I'm not sure which files I need to restore. Any pointers? Actually I want to move all of my Pleco configuration over to the Pre; I have the software installed there already and it seems to work.

Feeling pretty pissed off at Palm right now, I have to say; migrating data from device A to device B should not involve wiping out data on device A!

 

[koreth]

Did some more poking around and it seems like I'm screwed here -- it looks like I hadn't remembered to run PlecoMover in quite a long time, and from what I can tell that's the only way to cause flashcard data to get backed up as it is skipped by hotsync and not stored on the SD card. Is that accurate?

If so, my #1 feature request for Pleco is now an automatic (scheduled, perhaps) backup of all data that's currently hidden from the default system backup mechanisms. We shouldn't have to remember a multi-step manual process (PlecoMover to copy multiple files, followed by hotsync) to get our data backed up.

Ultimately it is of course my own damn fault for not realizing the implications of PlecoMover when I first read about it back in the 2.0 beta release days; I should have scheduled a regular reminder to myself to run it. Let this be a warning to everyone else: run PlecoMover regularly if you value your hard-earned flashcard scores! Disaster doesn't have to come in the form of an upgrade glitch; your device could be lost or stolen and you'll find yourself back on square one if you haven't thought to do a backup.

But hopefully I'm wrong and my data is all sitting somewhere on my PC waiting to be restored.

Time to decide if I should treat this as an opportunity to start taking a completely different approach to vocabulary learning, I guess.

 

[mikelove]

Yes, you need to back things up with PlecoMover - I've been carefully warning people about that in every update / beta announcement, but there are so many other warnings / notes scattered around the website that I guess it's easy to get accustomed to overlooking them. The alternative to PlecoMover is to just configure Pleco to store flashcards as PDBs (easy to HotSync but unreliable / prone to database corruption) or on an SD card (slower) - you can do that by moving them there with PlecoMover's "Advanced" screen.

However, it doesn't really make sense that your flashcards would disappear but your user dictionary wouldn't - if you open up PlecoMover, which files do you see listed under "Hidden Int"? What's the date on the flashcard file?

Automated backups wouldn't actually work on the Pre since it doesn't HotSync - the only ways to get data off of it are to upload that data to a server (not something we're likely to support on Palm) or copy it out of internal storage. An automated reminder is possible, I suppose, but I think that's liable to get ignored too - people rarely seem to read text that comes up in dialog boxes on startup.

 

[koreth]

I see both PlecoFlash (dated yesterday) and PlecoCUser<hex number> (dated July 1, which is probably about the last time I added a dictionary entry). I've tried copying the Flash file to my SD card using PlecoMover then examining the file on my computer; it is basically all nulls aside from what look like some table definitions. It kind of seems like the original got blown away and then Pleco created a new one when I fired it up after the upgrade, but I'm not sure how possible that is.

 

[koreth]

Oh, and yes, you did post lots of warnings in your upgrade instructions. Like I said, it is completely my fault. I guess subconsciously -- because clearly I was not thinking this through -- I must have figured I was doing more-or-less-daily hotsyncs to a computer that gets backed up regularly, so if something messed up I'd lose at most a day or two's worth of data, not too big a deal. I didn't internalize that this stuff was not getting backed up *at all* no matter how often I hotsynced.

On the Pre I plan to set up nightly backups of the stuff I can mount as an SD card, but you're right that that's not going to do the whole trick either. So I guess I'm going to get used to running PlecoMover after all.

 

[mikelove]

Well that's odd... when did you start using flashcards in the betas? Perhaps your flashcards were actually in PDB format; there was at least one beta where we had them in that by default before we realized how unstable / corruption-prone it was. Do you see "PlecoFlash" in your Palm Desktop backup directory by any chance? It wouldn't really make sense for Palm Desktop to delete one file in hidden internal memory and not the other, or for that matter to delete either of them since they're not something it would recognize as compatible / not compatible with OS 5. (that error's particularly odd since you most certainly are running Palm OS 5 - even the Treo 600 ran that)

On the Pre, I don't believe there actually is a hidden internal memory directory, but only the visible / public one, so you shouldn't need to use PlecoMover at all - the flashcard file should just show up in your Pre's filesystem when you connect it to your PC.

 

[HW60]

Well that's odd... when did you start using flashcards in the betas? Perhaps your flashcards were actually in PDB format; there was at least one beta where we had them in that by default before we realized how unstable / corruption-prone it was. .

I only use custom flashcards. flashcard.pdb is stored on a normal Compact Flash card. There is no problem with speed. I do not know what you mean with "how unstable / corruption-prone it was ...". I had no problems since early Pleco 2.0. I copy flashcard.pdb every now and then, usually after I entered about 50 new flashcards. Are there more things that can go wrong?

 

[koreth]

Well that's odd... when did you start using flashcards in the betas? Perhaps your flashcards were actually in PDB format; there was at least one beta where we had them in that by default before we realized how unstable / corruption-prone it was. Do you see "PlecoFlash" in your Palm Desktop backup directory by any chance? It wouldn't really make sense for Palm Desktop to delete one file in hidden internal memory and not the other, or for that matter to delete either of them since they're not something it would recognize as compatible / not compatible with OS 5. (that error's particularly odd since you most certainly are running Palm OS 5 - even the Treo 600 ran that)

No argument on the "odd" part but it seems like it's what happened. I have been using flashcards since one of the early betas, but there's no sign of any file with "Flash" in the name anywhere on my Treo or in my hotsync directories except the abovementioned file that has no data beyond the table definitions.

I've decided to treat this as an opportunity, though; a couple teachers have suggested that I should spend more time reading Chinese books/articles and less time reviewing words in isolation on flashcards. So I'm going to try going flashcard-free for a while and spend the hour a day I used to spend on flashcards instead doing reading. I may forget some vocabulary words I encountered once or twice a year ago and haven't seen since, but hopefully my reading speed will increase, and that's actually my biggest weak spot right now anyway. It's possible this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise in the long run, since I hadn't been willing to shake the flashcard habit on my own.