I recently install a new SSD on my computer and loaded Ubuntu 21.04. All data was transferred from my old HD to the new one.
Today I installed Gramps 5.1.3 on the new drive and then imported the most recent GED file I had created in Gramps on my old HD.
It worked but all the ‘Living’ people transferred as [Living] instead of with their full names. In the process of exporting, I unticked ‘Do not include records marked private’ and ensured that Living Filter included all selected people.
When I open Gramps from the old HD, all the living people are there with their full details. But somehow these details are lost bvetween exporting and importing into Gramps on the new HD.
How do I stop this from happening and get all details exported?
The best way is to create a Backup of the old database using Gramps (XML).
To create the GEDCOM you actually create an export which can be created using filters or restricting living individuals. A Backup is the entire database as is. No filters, no conditions.
Since you are doing this for yourself, create the backup without the Media package. It will be just as easy to move the media files and its folder structure to a new location. Just remember to set the new Base media path in Preferences.
Gramps 5.0 and greater has an automatic Backup setting which will create the backup on exit any time you have made changes. These should be stored safely on an external drive for when your computer has that bad day.
Sounds like you had a different menu item selected for the Living Filter than you wanted. (Although I’d NEVER use GEDCOM for a Gramps to Gramps transfer due to the information that will be lost.) You want the original default. But it remembers the last used.
From an IT perspective on backup retention, not maintaining a chain of restore points is a risky approach.
It is a lesson painfully learned (by thousands of organizations) that users don’t know about data loss or corruption immediately. And that good data cannot be recovered from backups of corrupted records.
However, you generally pare down the density of backup in the chain in proportion to the depreciation of data value. As a general policy, the backups just prior to upgrades are assigned an artificially higher value.
Also assume that early life (and end of life) failures are a high risk factors. So your backups on new equipment (and new backup equipment) are at higher risk. As are the backups close to equipment retirement.
Ah sorry DaveSch, I didn’t make myself clear. As a new .gramps file is created as a backup every time Gramps is closed after changes are made, a large number of .gramps files end up in the folder. And they continue to accumulate.
I understand emyoulation that they provide ‘restore points’ but how many should I keep and how far back?
I have a thumb drive where I keep my backups. I move them from the HD every day or two. The thumb drive will hold about 3 months of backups so when I start moving the third month I will delete the oldest month of backups. In affect, I will have 1 1/2 to 2 months of backups . I will specially mark a backup before making a major change. In truth, I have never had to use them.
I only have Gramps make the backup on exit. I do not use the timed backups. I have a large file so it does take a very noticeable time to make the backups so I do not want to be stopped in my work flow.
Yes that makes sense. I have plenty of room on my HD so I just leave them there (knowing that I risk losing data is the HD gets corrupted). I guess that’s the risk I take. But I have an old HD in the system as well and it no longer holds data I need so I could format that and use it for backups like this.
Say that quarterly I’ll clean excessive copies… so that I will keep Daily backups for the last week, weekly for the last month & monthly for the last year.
But I might choose to leave Named (as opposed to timestamped) backups that indicated a particularly risky change and the subsequent backup.
So I’ll keep the 5.0.2 to 5.1.0 upgrade backup & the first 5.1 backup. Just like I kept my last backup when using BSDDB & first after converting to SQLite. And the backups before & after doing a major overhaul of my Place hierarchy.
But I don’t use Media… so my backups are smaller. (I wish Gramps broke backups into separate XML & Media segments.)
