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Basecamp datafile reportedly corrupted, and no way to restore neither from time machine backup nor from an explicit backup made from the app.

8632037
over 2 years ago

Basecamp reports that my data is corrupted. 

I tried to restore from time machine => stil reported as corrupted. 

I tried to restore from a backup I made last time I used the app => it loads the backup but after restarting, reports the data as corrupted. 

Is there a way to diagnose the reported corruption and/or fix the error, to *at least* recover part of the data ?? 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to danham_

    I did the whole "new account / new install" test, and the backup cannot be loaded and is still reported as corrupted.

    Is there a ready-made software utility that I could use to diagnose / repair the gdb file, or even a publicly available file format documentation ? 

    I'd rather avoid redoing the work... or at the very least try to rescue as much of it as I can. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 8632037

    (correction : the backup can be loaded, and only afterwards is the data reported as corrupted, which matches the fact that the zip file is ok, but its contents (aka the gdb file) is not)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 8632037

    I’m grasping at straws, but maybe this could help. In the new user install of BC, create a new “Collection” consisting of only a few Favorites and Routes. Open that file and examine the file structure with particular attention to the header and tag structure. Compare that to the corrupt one. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to danham_

    Thank you danham_ I will. I also found this : https://www.memotech.franken.de/FileFormats/Garmin_MPS_GDB_and_GFI_Format.pdf 

    Not sure if and how much it is up-to-date, but it may be useful, so I share it here.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 8632037

    I’m no gdb expert, but having edited lots of route files to allow sorted, alphabetized lists in my zumo, I have observed that Garmin loads up their files with lots of non-standard XML tags. So before going too far down that rabbit hole, I’d be tempted to look for more generic corruption, like missing < or > or garbage characters inserted in places that break the code. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to danham_

    I add this here in the hope that it is able to help someone who, like me, loses your Basecamp datafile due to a corrupted backup.  Here is how I was able to retrieve my backup Basecamp files even though the files were corrupted and the Restore function did not work in the application. 

    The whole story went like this…Basecamp crashed.  This happens with some frequency as my Basecamp file is pretty massive (>2GB).  When I restarted the application, it told me there was a problem with the list file and gave me the option to fix or cancel.  I hit “Fix” as this is also a fairly frequent occurrence and Basecamp has always loaded successfully after that selected choice.  But this time, it reloaded a backup file that was over four years old!  WTF!  Okay, no problem….I make frequent backup files using the Backup function in the app.  I hit Restore and selected the latest backup (only about a month old) and watched it load with satisfaction:

     

    Satisfaction turned to horror when I got the following error:

     

    Horror turned to panic as it happened repeatedly even after closing the app, rebooting the machine, and even deleting and reloading the app.  I even tried a fresh load of the app on a different machine but got the same result.  

    I started going farther and farther back in time, looking for a .bak file that would load. After many tries, the app successfully loaded one of my backups from ~18 months ago.  There was no way I was satisfied with having to re-create 18 months of history and data saved.  I turned to Google for advice and most of the hits were from the Garmin forums.  I read and read and read but found nothing that was any different than what I had already tried.  Finally, I ran across this particular thread:

    https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software/f/basecamp-windows/80015/how-to-restore-from-windows-backup#pifragment-1303=2

    In this thread, I found the first clue that gave me insight into how I might be able to fix my issue:

     

    I did some more digging and found where the AllData.gdb and FolderData.gfi files reside within my computer’s directory structure.  They are found here:  C:\User\User\AppData\Roaming\Garmin\Basecamp\DataBase.    Each time Basecamp closes (either upon normal exit or crash), it saves these two files and indexes the previous version of the same two files to .bak status.  Hmmmm…..what if the corrupted file (“exception”) was only fatal to the Restore function process and not to the actual data files?  Now I was ready to try a manual “fix”.

    I took my latest .bak file, made a copy, simply changed the extension from .bak to .zip and unzipped the file using a common zip utility.  Voila!  Sure enough, the zipped backup file contained the needed AllData.gdb and FolderData.gfi files in folder for both the current (4.7) and previous (4.6) loads of Basecamp.  I simply placed the 4.7 version of the files into appropriate folder (C:\User\User\AppData\Roaming\Garmin\Basecamp\DataBase) instead of the “current” files, restarted Basecamp normally, and ALL my files from the latest backup successfully loaded.  Evidently, one of the files needed for Restore was corrupted and interrupting the function but the data files themselves were not irretrievably impacted. 

    I sincerely hope that this manual method of “restoring” your backup files, even when the Restore function in the app fails, is of value to other poor souls who have similar issues.