Problem with Autoback-up

[RoyS]

Mark - I am only an occasional user of FM Personal and now suspect that my Autoback folder is screwed. I updated to FM2018 on 5 November from (I think) FM2014. After working with the new version for a few days I realised that the data register for each investment (price, transactions etc) had no data since end-2014. I used Restore to temporarily open a couple of old versions of the portfolio - one from September this year showed the same problem but one from end-2016 was up-to-date.

Examination of the Autoback folder showed 2 cycles of 30 backups (I use the default setting in Options > General > data) but neither cycle is chronological and has a mixture of dates:
Cycle 1 has filenames Invest_1.fmb - Invest_30.fmb (which is what I expect) with dates 30/7/2013 - 18/2/2015 and 28/9/2017 - 9/11/2017
Cycle 2 is Invest1_1 - Invest1-30.fmb with dates 9/9/2015 - 27/9/2017 and 10/11/2017.

My problem is that since updating to FM2018 I have done considerable maintenance so I appear to have the choice of using the most up-to-date data (end-2016) and having to re-do maintenance or using the up-to-date maintenance but having to re-enter several years of data. Also, the Autoback folder needs to be made to work as expected so that I can be confident of opening the most recent version of my portfolio.

I would be (very) grateful for your advice on clearing up this mess and suggestions as to what has caused this to happen.

Best wishes - Roy Simpson

[Mark]

Hi Roy,

The automatic backups indicate you've used 2 different *.mm4 portfolio files. One named "Invest.mm4", and the other "Invest1.mm4". The numbers at the end of the backup files don't mean anything, other than giving them unique filenames, so you can keep more than 1 backup. Look at the date modified to decide what to restore, not the number in the filename. Look in the title bar of the program to see the currently opened *.mm4 filename. Use "File / Open Portfolio" to open a different one.

If you somehow have data split between 2 sets of files, you may have to merge the data. You could restore one copy to one folder, and another copy to a different folder, so you can have both open at once. You can copy/paste data across using the clipboard. We have a tutorial that may help on the merging part. Please see this tutorial.

[RoyS]

Mark - many thanks for this. Clearly, I have 'accidentally' set up a second .mm4 file, altho' I have no idea when this happened!

The invest1.mm4 file gives me the best combination of updated maintenance and of data update so I want to continue using this. Do I just delete Invest.mm4 and the associated .fmb cycle of files and then FM will continue to pick up the Invest1.mm4 set?

Thanks - Roy

[Mark]

Hi Roy,

You don't have to delete the invest.mm4 and associated *.fmb files, but you can. They aren't used unless you open the .mm4 file, or restore from one of the *.fmb files. I would probably suggest not deleting anything until you've got your data all merged and back the way you want, just in case you need to try and copy some data from there.