Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Some updated programs have data crash with New FamilySearch

New FamilySearch (NFS) has just completed a major change in its Application Programming Interface or API. Because of this change all of the programs that connect to NFS were required to upgrade to adapt to the changes. All of the existing lineage linked database programs, Ancestral Quest, RootsMagic and Legacy Family Tree have very recently issued updates to their programs. I downloaded each of the updates and had the following experiences, so far, with each of the programs:

Ancestral Quest -- the update was easy to install and quickly converted my existing data file to the new file format. I tried connecting to NFS and everything worked, first time, without any apparent problems. I did try loading another huge database file but it got hung up in loading. All in all the program works without any apparent problems. Some features have changed and I will comment on them another time.

RootsMagic -- I updated the program and tried to use my existing file. I immediately experienced a problem loading the file and got a SQLite Error 11 error message, meaning my "database image is malformed." I tried a number of fixes including reloading a new database and even starting one from scratch. The program will not work with NFS at all.

Legacy Family Tree -- Exactly the same experience I had with RootsMagic, neither program will work at all with NFS on my computer. I have been in contact with Legacy's support and am waiting for a response to the problem.

I must add that I do not use the most common computer setup. I am running Parallels Desktop on an iMac using Windows 7. It is sometimes very hard to determine which of the three is the problem, but the fact that Ancestral Quest runs fine with the new update leads me to believe that the programs are the present problem, not Windows 7 or the iMac or Parallels Desktop.

I am sure this is an evolving situation and will probably change several times over the next few days and weeks.

2 comments:

  1. I uploaded the RootsMagic4 update and have been syncing it with New Family Search for several days with no problems.

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  2. Recent investigations have uncovered a problem with running RM4 on the Parallels Desktop in shared mode on a Mac that results in corruption of the database with the error SQLite Error 11 - database disk image is malformed. Having the database on the exclusively Windows drive seems to avoid the problem. For more details, see http://forums.rootsmagic.com/index.php?/topic/8321-sqlite-error-11-database-disk-image-is-malformed/page__view__findpost__p__36209

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