Census tags changing between computers for the same Project

[Smartr 0]

My wife and I both use TMG (v 9.05 UK). My PC (computer A) is running Windows 10 Prof (upgraded from W7 Prof) and TMG runs perfectly. My wife has recently purchased a new PC (computer which was pre-installed with Windows 10 Prof. I loaded TMG onto B and restored the Project (more than 15000 persons) and everything appeared to be running smoothly – until we went to enter some UK census data.

 

As we are both from the UK the majority of the people in our Project are/were in the UK. We have separate tags for each UK census (Census 1841, Census 1851, etc). We both have a few US and Canadian relatives, so we use a US Census tag and a Canadian Census tag. On B, these latter tags now appear as Census 19011 and as Census 190111 respectively. Also the default sentence structure in the UK census tags has been changed.

 

On A they read “ In 1911 [PF] <|and [PO]> appeared in the census <[L1]> …<[L5]>, <[M]>”

On B they read “[P] <was | and [PO] were> Census 1911 <[M]> <[D]> <[L]>”

 

I have uninstalled TMG on B and reinstalled it, but the problem remains.

 

I have also copied the entire Projects folder from A to B, and although everything appears correctly on A, the tags are corrupted when the same database files are displayed on B. I had always assumed that the tag definitions were specific to the Project, so copying the Projects folder should transfer all the tag definitions as well, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. I’ve tried exporting the tags from A and importing them to B, but B recognises that they already exist so will not overwrite them.

 

I’ve looked in Terry Reigel's Data File Storage webpage and in the Help within TMG but I can’t see anything that explains what is going on (let alone how to fix it).

 

Can anyone explain what is going on?

[Jim Byram 0]

I don't know why but the tag types have changed on the B machine. The tag type memo file has no data for the tag type so you are seeing the default sentence that occurs if no sentence has ever been edited for the tag type. What you are seeing is basically damage to the tag type table (or corresponding memo file) so this is damage to the project's T-table.

 

The question is why this is happening when you restore or copy the projects folder to the B machine.

 

I'm guessing that some third party software is involved on the B machine such as a syncing program or an anti-virus or anti-malware program. Are there differences in such software between the two computers? Does the new notebook have some such software running that came with the computer?

[Smartr 0]

Both computers are from Dell and both are using the same McAfee Security software. Windows Defender is turned off on both computers. The main difference is that computer A is an upgraded system from Windows 7, while B is native Windows 10.

[Jim Byram 0]

McAfee has a history of causing problems with TMG. On the notebook, exclude the TMG process, do a restore and check the tags.

 

You want to exclude: C:\Program Files (x86)\The Master Genealogist v9\tmg9.exe

[Smartr 0]

Unfortunately that hasn't fixed the problem. I excluded tmg9.exe from Real-time Scanning, rebooted, and restored the project, but the American and Canadian censuses still show as tags Census 19011 and 190111.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Jim is giving you excellent advice but I see two issues.

 

First, excluding only the one file tmg.exe will not help the problem. You have to exclude the entire folder which contains all the many files which constitute your project(s). These are the files which Real-time Scanning can interfere with when TMG in is the midst of writing to one or more of those files. Further, this exclusion will only prevent "future" damage to those project files. If the tag file names still exist when you restore your project, then those definitions are already within that restored project.

 

By the way, disabling Real-time Scanning may not be enough. Some users have reported that the Microsoft OneDrive facility is now enabled by default in new Win10 machines. You should also ensure that the TMG project folders are excluded from monitoring by that software.

 

Second, if the names of your tags are "Census 19011" and "Census 190111", I know of only one way those names could have been created in a project by TMG. These names were likely created when you "imported" tag types into a project, twice. In both cases I would guess you chose the option to import and not overwrite even if the tag type is different but the name already exists The first import would contain a tag type of the name "Census 1901" but would find an existing tag type of that same name "Census 1901". It would import that tag type but rename it by incrementing to "Census 19011". Now you do a second import of tag types which contains a tag type named "Census 19011". Again it would find an existing tag type of that same name "Census 19011". TMG would import that tag type but now rename it by incrementing to "Census 190111".

 

If you wish to do importing of tag types, you might want to review that topic in the "Import/Export" chapter of my on-line book:

http://www.mjh-nm.net/IMEXPORT.HTML#ImportTag

 

Finally, I would look on machine A, verify that these tag type names do not exist in that project, and make a new backup of that project. Then restore that new backup on machine B. That should bring things back in sync.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

[Smartr 0]

Hi Michael and Jim,

 

Just to muddy the water even further, I copied the "corrupted project" from B to a new folder on A and opened it in TMG on A. Lo and behold the tags are correct, ie Census 19011 appears as US Census, as it did originally. So the data itself on B is not corrupt - it is just that TMG on B is displaying it incorrectly. I'm also not aware of having imported tags to this project (except when trying to fix this problem as mentioned in my original post) so I doubt that that is involved.

 

Richard

[Terry Reigel 0]

Richard,

 

Compare the setting under File > Language on the two computers. I think you will find them different. If so, change Computer B to match Computer A.

[Smartr 0]

Thank you. That fixed the problem. It was set on English (US) instead of English (UK). I'm amazed that such a change had such an effect.

 

Thank you all for your help over the last few days.

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Richard.

 

Here's what happened:

 

The Tag Type Labels, like many other features in TMG, are "translated" into the language of the user's choice. That is, there is a label for each language, and which label is displayed is controlled by the Language setting. This feature is primarily designed for users of languages other than English.

 

You initially installed the English (UK) version of TMG. When you do that, you get a few different Tag Types and Sentences, and the Language is set to English (UK). The Tag Type labels for the standard Tag Types are the same in both English (US) and English (UK).

 

Since you were using the UK version, there was no census tag type for US censuses, so you created one. You did that by copying a UK census Tag Type, and changing the label and probably the Sentence. Since your program was set to English (UK) when you changed the label it was only changed in that language. The label in English (US) remained the same, except that TMG added a "1" to the end to differentiate it from the existing Tag Type that you had copied.

 

This all works fine until you installed on a new computer. That installation had the language set to English (US), I suspect because you installed the US version. When you opened an existing Project in that installation it displayed the Tag Type labels for English (US) - which in most cases were the same as the English (UK) ones, but not for your custom US census Tag Type.

 

Now that you have set the Language to English (UK) on the new computer there shouldn't be any issue for you, with one exception. If you were to create a new Project on that computer that Project will contain the US Tag Types and not the UK ones.

[Michael Hannah 0]

As Terry notes, you probably have installed the US version on one computer when you really wanted the UK version. To really keep the two computers in sync, you may wish to uninstall the US version and install the UK version, or vice versa, so the two computers match.

[Smartr 0]

You are both almost right. I only have the UK version as an install version, but unfortunately left the language on English (US) when asked to select the language during the install. I did that because, being in Australia, we use the US keyboard with the $ key rather than the pound key. I had confused the use of a US keyboard with the use of the US language setting in TMG. I can see now how the Census 19011 tag came about. I must have copied our Census 1901 tag to create the US Census tag, so that all the roles were copied to the new tag. We must have done the same with the Canadian Census tag.

 

Again, thank you for your help.