Help with Data recovery for DB saved in v4.2.8

Help
1

Finding an old DB

Hi I’m new here and am possibly using the wrong format - apologies!

I have used Gramps sporadically for about 8 years and have a DB saved in v4.2.8 on an old hard drive. I have installed v6.0.8 today (win 11) so need to know how to recover my DB (filename extension?). Please assume I’m inept

Grant

2

Welcome,

If the old DB is a Gramps XML backup ( .gramps or .gpkg XML backup/archive files ) then follow the instructions on:

Let us know how you go.

3

Gramps 4.2.8 (released 2018-02-09) uses the BSDDB database engine that was superseded. (Beginning with 5.0, we were forced to switch because support for BSDDB has been dropping out of modern versions of Python, Gtk and the OSes.)

Gramps 5.2 and newer now require SQLite (or one of the alternative modern database plug-ins.)

You will need to either:

  1. convert a copy of the BSDDB database tree to SQLite
  2. export your Tree to a .gramps (the Gramps preferred flavor of XML format for export/import) file using a older (v4.2.8 to v5.1.6) version of Gramps; and then import it into a new, blank Tree in Gramps 5.2 or newer.

Do you still have the 4.2.8 version installed? It is a significantly easier to just export your tree than convert it. (Plus a major export and restore creates a well-defined restore point. And it confirms that the backup file is good.)

(A linux user had your same question just a couple weeks ago. If you have uninstalled the old Gramps, that thread describes how to look at the old gramps.ini file to discover where the Gramps database lives on your computer.)

As a Windows user, you have added options. Portable Apps has legacy versions of Portable Gramps. You can download the 5.1.6 version of Portable Gramps on a USB flashdrive, copy the old database folder and paste that folder into the grampsdb folder on the USB flashdrive. Manually copying the Media files is a more complex proposition.

4

Thanks, found a .gpkg file that seems ok