Sonny Software

After de last update - 13.2.1 - all my custom reference types and custom field labels have disappeared! How to recover them?

Are you running antivirus software? That seems to be the problem for some. Please download 13.2.1 again, we've added some protection for that. However, you'll need to re-enter your previous types and fields again I'm afraid.

Jon
Sonny Software

At least one user has had success restoring his modified Type and field labels doing this:

1. Quit Bookends (important!)
2. Remove the file TypeAndFieldLabels.txt from the Bookends folder (use the Help menu to go to that folder).
3. Restore Bookends Preferences (also in that folder) from Time Machine.
4. Run Bookends.

Jon
Sonny Software

I used the time machine to restore a previous version.
Now I just need to download and install the new version or I need to do anything else?
(I'm not running any antivirus software...)

Yes, just download 13.2.1 again and follow those instructions. Let us know if it works for you.

Jon
Sonny Software

For now it seems ok.
Thanks.

I send an email to support with another issue.
thanks

Thanks a lot for the tip.
The new version had wipped out my refence types that I had been working on for years.

Jon wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 8:42 am At least one user has had success restoring his modified Type and field labels doing this:

1. Quit Bookends (important!)
2. Remove the file TypeAndFieldLabels.txt from the Bookends folder (use the Help menu to go to that folder).
3. Restore Bookends Preferences (also in that folder) from Time Machine.
4. Run Bookends.

Jon
Sonny Software

For me, I just had to do steps 1 and 2. But I can imagine that step 3 would be important if the new (13.2.1) version of Bookends had modified the Bookends Preferences file.

Right, that's because we added a check to make sure the file was written before removing the information from the preferences file. But we hadn't uploaded that at the time of my original reply.

Jon
Sonny Software

If you are having this problem please download Bookends 13.2.1 again (if you're not having this problem don't bother, you have the correct build).

Time Machine did not offer me an option for previous versions of the preference files. Luckily I have a propriety backup service running that allowed me find a previous versions of the file. I'm glad my customisations (most of them anyway) were recoverable.

It's pretty worrying to be honest to see this kind of thing happen. I'm not so sure I want to invest more time customising Bookends or put the effort into looking for an alternative.

What kind of thing? Software is complicated and unexpected things happen. There's nothing wrong with our code, which we thoroughly tested, but it turned out that on a small number of systems Bookends was being prevented from writing the file containing the old types and labels (why -- who knows? Anti-virus software? Permission?). As soon as we got reports about it we released a silent update that didn't remove the old types and labels until the file was successfully written (within 24 hours). Now the problem shouldn't happen again. But if something else turns up we'll address it. Please do look for alternatives. But if you expect any complicated piece of software to be 100% trouble-free with all of the different configurations out there you're going to be disappointed. In the realm of reference managers alone, check out the forums for EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.

Jon
Sonny Software

Hi Jon,

I’m not a software developer so I guess I don’t understand the difficulties in explaining bugs. I have experience in system administration though and one thing I’ve learned is that users losing data is a bad place to be, and if you have to explain you’re already losing. I know what a 24 or 12 hour turnaround feels like too. I prefer to pay for software that is sustainably supported and avoid ‘free’ apps like Zotero. Maybe LaTeX is a better fit for me if I decide to change.

Many thanks

I ran into the same problem. Thanks for the fix and instruction.

A new TypesAndLabels.txt that had removed this info from the preferences file? Interesting! This should make it easier to disseminate own type/label customizations when using Bookends on more than one machine. Copying the preference file from one machine to another was not an optimal solution, as some preferences settings need to be locally different.
Having this type/label info as a separate file was actually on my list of feature requests. So, thank you, Jon.

-Steven