Have you seen a message in CheckBook or CheckBook Pro about a damaged document or a damaged database? Don’t panic. We can help you with that. Please read the rest of this post for details and how to proceed.
First, unless you’ve been using version 2.5.7 or later for some time, we’re almost positive the damage occurred while you were using an older version of CheckBook or CheckBook Pro. We’ll explain why and how the current version won’t let you down in the same way, but we feel it’s very important for you to know that damaging your document is not the very first thing 2.5.7 will do. It’s trying to do exactly the opposite.
In versions 2.5 to 2.5.5, CheckBook and CheckBook Pro weren’t able to detect and tell their user about all the forms of damage that could happen to one of their documents. This sometimes led to situations where a document became damaged but was still almost usable, and sometimes the application would let you continue using the document without telling you. This would go on for days or weeks without you knowing the damage was done, until you hit a point where the document just couldn’t be used anymore and you’d either contact us for help or throw the app out the window.
Thank you for not throwing the app out the window.
We’re responsible for not telling you your document was damaged as soon as possible and we apologize for the grief we caused. To ensure this won’t happen again, and to repair your document in many cases, we made some very serious improvements in version 2.5.7:
- We reworked the way CheckBook and CheckBook Pro store your data to be sure that some forms of damage just can’t happen at all.
- We gave CheckBook and CheckBook Pro the ability to tell you when your document is damaged. You might see a scary message about damage immediately upon upgrading from previous versions but don’t panic. Keep reading.
- We taught CheckBook and CheckBook Pro how to repair some forms of damage that occurred in previous versions, and if the damage can’t be repaired, how to restore the most recent fully-functional automatic backup.
If you see a message about a damaged document when you open CheckBook or CheckBook Pro 2.5.7, look at the buttons below the message. If you see an option to repair the document, try it. If the document can’t be repaired and you’re given the option to restore a backup, try it. If at any point you see a bunch of errors about the database, click the OK button, quit and open CheckBook again, and try restoring instead of repairing. If you feel overwhelmed by errors and need a hand sorting it out, click the Send to Splasm… button below the errors so we can have a look and help out. We’d be happy to!
One thing about restoring an automatic backup: The older the backup, the more things won’t be quite the way you left them. Any Entries you created since the backup was made won’t be there – and neither will any Scheduled Entries you might have committed. So you might notice some Entries are missing or Scheduled Entries you already committed appear in the Schedule Reminder. We wish there was a way around it but that’s just how it works when you restore an older version of your data.
Thank you again for allowing us to explain the changes we’ve made in CheckBook and CheckBook Pro 2.5.7. Your support is paramount and we’re committed to doing our best to return that support in kind when you need it. Please get in touch at support@splasm.com if you need any additional details.