Hello. For some reason, I lost about 3 months of data when I closed my Buddi file while it was still showing the results of a search in the budget categories field. Now to restore my info, I'm trying to just use a QIF import file from my credit union. The problem is that the info that should be entered in the 'description' field is instead all in the 'number' field. The date of transaction posting is entered, the 'description' field is left blank, the transaction date and description is in the 'number' field, and the amount is entered. I am trying to use a QIF download to limit manual entry but this will not be the case if I still have to go through each transaction to copy & paste the vendor into the description field! I am not a programmer so I'm not able to tinker with the plugin myself.
Incidentally, I tried the CSV plugin but that did not seem to work at all. Though I received a message that the file had been imported, there was no data update to the file.
Thank you for any help you can provide!
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I can't really comment on the various import plugins... they were written by third parties years ago, and have not really been kept updated.
That said, I would be very surprised if the data is truly lost and cannot be recovered.
First off, I would verify that the search is still not applied. Normally the search terms are saved, so they would show up when you restarted the program. Sometimes this happens with the search pane collapsed, so it is not obvious that the search is still there. I would check this first.
Once you are sure that the search is still not there, I would look to the backup files. (I am assuming that the three months of data has been entered over the course of many sessions, and that you have saved the data file each time). The backup files are in the same folder as your data file, and are called buddi3bak_0, _1, _2, etc. They are rotated every time you save, and the lowest number is the most recent (i.e. when you hit 'save', the oldest backup is deleted, the second oldest is renamed to be the oldest, and so on down the line until the current file is renamed as backup 0. A new data file is then saved in place of the last data file. This gives you access to the previous 10 saved files in the event of data loss like this).
To recover a backup file, simply copy it to a new location and rename it to .buddi3 extension. You can then open the file from Buddi using File -> Open.
Please let me know if this helps at all. Feel free to email me directly if you need assistance.
Cheers
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The search is definitely not still applied. I did try to recover the data using the backups. By the time I realized that data was lost, apparently the backup process had overwritten even the oldest backup file. I don't know what the interval is on saving backups, but I have 5 files and all were missing the last 3 months when I checked them. This happened awhile ago and I was so frustrated I haven't worked on this for a long time.
Is there a size limit on the data files? Could that be part of the problem?
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The backup happens once every time you save. So every time you hit 'File -> Save', it will delete the oldest backup and do the shuffle. Hit Save 10 times in a session and you have overwritten 10 backups.
There is no size limit (either explicit or implied, other than just limited by system memory, and that would cause other errors rather than just losing some entries).
Do you happen to have a Time Machine (Mac) or other periodic backup software (Windows)? If the backups are all overwritten, then that would be your last option, I guess... I am very sorry for this issue, I know you have been a long time Buddi user and I really hate to see something like this happen.
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Unfortunately I allowed my backup system to overwrite the older Buddi backups with the newer ones. Stupid, I know. I will not be doing that anymore. I also un-did the change to my default number of backup files -- now back to 10 instead of the 5 I had changed it to. I just had never had a problem until now and 10 files seemed so unnecessary. I will try to be very careful to keep cleaner and more frequent backups from now on, just in case of weird data-eating software snarls like this in the future. I am working on manually cleaning up the QIF import file now just to rebuild my data so I have a complete set. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for looking at this issue, anyway.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hello. For some reason, I lost about 3 months of data when I closed my Buddi file while it was still showing the results of a search in the budget categories field. Now to restore my info, I'm trying to just use a QIF import file from my credit union. The problem is that the info that should be entered in the 'description' field is instead all in the 'number' field. The date of transaction posting is entered, the 'description' field is left blank, the transaction date and description is in the 'number' field, and the amount is entered. I am trying to use a QIF download to limit manual entry but this will not be the case if I still have to go through each transaction to copy & paste the vendor into the description field! I am not a programmer so I'm not able to tinker with the plugin myself.
Incidentally, I tried the CSV plugin but that did not seem to work at all. Though I received a message that the file had been imported, there was no data update to the file.
Thank you for any help you can provide!
Hello,
I can't really comment on the various import plugins... they were written by third parties years ago, and have not really been kept updated.
That said, I would be very surprised if the data is truly lost and cannot be recovered.
First off, I would verify that the search is still not applied. Normally the search terms are saved, so they would show up when you restarted the program. Sometimes this happens with the search pane collapsed, so it is not obvious that the search is still there. I would check this first.
Once you are sure that the search is still not there, I would look to the backup files. (I am assuming that the three months of data has been entered over the course of many sessions, and that you have saved the data file each time). The backup files are in the same folder as your data file, and are called buddi3bak_0, _1, _2, etc. They are rotated every time you save, and the lowest number is the most recent (i.e. when you hit 'save', the oldest backup is deleted, the second oldest is renamed to be the oldest, and so on down the line until the current file is renamed as backup 0. A new data file is then saved in place of the last data file. This gives you access to the previous 10 saved files in the event of data loss like this).
To recover a backup file, simply copy it to a new location and rename it to .buddi3 extension. You can then open the file from Buddi using File -> Open.
Please let me know if this helps at all. Feel free to email me directly if you need assistance.
Cheers
The search is definitely not still applied. I did try to recover the data using the backups. By the time I realized that data was lost, apparently the backup process had overwritten even the oldest backup file. I don't know what the interval is on saving backups, but I have 5 files and all were missing the last 3 months when I checked them. This happened awhile ago and I was so frustrated I haven't worked on this for a long time.
Is there a size limit on the data files? Could that be part of the problem?
The backup happens once every time you save. So every time you hit 'File -> Save', it will delete the oldest backup and do the shuffle. Hit Save 10 times in a session and you have overwritten 10 backups.
There is no size limit (either explicit or implied, other than just limited by system memory, and that would cause other errors rather than just losing some entries).
Do you happen to have a Time Machine (Mac) or other periodic backup software (Windows)? If the backups are all overwritten, then that would be your last option, I guess... I am very sorry for this issue, I know you have been a long time Buddi user and I really hate to see something like this happen.
Unfortunately I allowed my backup system to overwrite the older Buddi backups with the newer ones. Stupid, I know. I will not be doing that anymore. I also un-did the change to my default number of backup files -- now back to 10 instead of the 5 I had changed it to. I just had never had a problem until now and 10 files seemed so unnecessary. I will try to be very careful to keep cleaner and more frequent backups from now on, just in case of weird data-eating software snarls like this in the future. I am working on manually cleaning up the QIF import file now just to rebuild my data so I have a complete set. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for looking at this issue, anyway.