Like many others who have complained I’ve had ongoing crashes with two of my four family files. I have been able to upload one of the files to Ancestry.com so I believe that the issue is not with my computers/operating systems, both Dell Insperion with 8 meg and W7.
Anyway, I have also gone through several levels of so-called help at Ancestry without any resolution of my issues. I have accepted the fact that large, complex files could become corrupt, despite the best efforts of the user and the developer to edit input data. What I find unacceptable on the part of Ancestry management is that they refuse to provide error messages that would help the user determine the location of the problem. In addition, they have only agreed to “consider” a diagnostic tool that could be used to find and report the problem area. Perhaps they will take me up on my offer to “beta test” such a tool.
Enough ranting so I’ll discuss one way I found to determine the cause of crashes. I had several instances when I clicked on a “thumbnail” and FTM crashed. I couldn't just delete the media as I did’t want to lose that info. Anyway, if you go the Media->Collection and right click on each file you’ll get sooner or later to the one the crashes FTM. If you've made note of the name of the thumbnail, then restart FTM and go to Media->Detail and scroll through till you get to the corrupt thumbnail. You’ll then see the Windows file name and you can then go to Windows Explorer and move that file out of the FTM Media file. Then go back to FTM to the Media Detail and Delete the thumbnail, I found about a dozen corrupt thumbnails in about 2,000 media items.
I’d like to be able to sat that this fixed my crashes but “Not!” I still crash when I try to synch with Ancestry, when I try to create certain reports, when I try to create a Gedcom file and probable more that I haven't tried. I can create a Gedcom file with the ancestors of my 'Home" person and one generation. If I try to create a Gedcom with two generations then FTM crashes. I can upload the "one generation" to A.com.
Any suggestions on how to repair a corrupt FTM file?
Anyway, I have also gone through several levels of so-called help at Ancestry without any resolution of my issues. I have accepted the fact that large, complex files could become corrupt, despite the best efforts of the user and the developer to edit input data. What I find unacceptable on the part of Ancestry management is that they refuse to provide error messages that would help the user determine the location of the problem. In addition, they have only agreed to “consider” a diagnostic tool that could be used to find and report the problem area. Perhaps they will take me up on my offer to “beta test” such a tool.
Enough ranting so I’ll discuss one way I found to determine the cause of crashes. I had several instances when I clicked on a “thumbnail” and FTM crashed. I couldn't just delete the media as I did’t want to lose that info. Anyway, if you go the Media->Collection and right click on each file you’ll get sooner or later to the one the crashes FTM. If you've made note of the name of the thumbnail, then restart FTM and go to Media->Detail and scroll through till you get to the corrupt thumbnail. You’ll then see the Windows file name and you can then go to Windows Explorer and move that file out of the FTM Media file. Then go back to FTM to the Media Detail and Delete the thumbnail, I found about a dozen corrupt thumbnails in about 2,000 media items.
I’d like to be able to sat that this fixed my crashes but “Not!” I still crash when I try to synch with Ancestry, when I try to create certain reports, when I try to create a Gedcom file and probable more that I haven't tried. I can create a Gedcom file with the ancestors of my 'Home" person and one generation. If I try to create a Gedcom with two generations then FTM crashes. I can upload the "one generation" to A.com.
Any suggestions on how to repair a corrupt FTM file?