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Effects of Synchronisation Failure in FTM 2012
I have recently had several failures of synchronisation and that has been picked up by the Ancestry.com team who are addressing the issue.
This had led me to the realisation that failure is eventually inevitable, even in the most well constructed systems, and to consider what good practice might be in order to preserve the many hours of work represented by synchronised family trees.
It seems that when synchronisation fails there is currently no information as to why that occurrs or any way to address the problem of relinking other than to either upload the Family Tree Maker version to Ancestry.com or to download the Ancestry.com version and relink. As the versions are different that leads to information loss. For instance, if the FTM version is used the links to other trees are lost or, if the web version is downloaded tasks are lost as is any organisation of media into sub folders. There are many other implications.
If I have any of the foregoing wrong, then I'd like to understand what is the actual situation.
I have currently opted for downloading the web version (partly because it is faster given that my download speed is much higher than my upload speed) but this had led to many problems. The most urgent one is that the behaviour of downloading seems to differ each time. The last but one download automatically included all the Ancestry source material (copies of census forms etc) whereas the last one only included my own media (photos, etc). Given that I consider it important that I have copies of all source material available locally and properly linked to FTM, the last download is less than satisfactory.
The purpose of this message is not necessarily to address any particular issue but to point out that there are problems and to find out if others see similar problems and are wishing to discuss them with a view to them being addressed by Ancestry.com and to determine what are the considerations relative to good practice in the real world of occasional system failure. I appreciate that I am new here and that the matters may have been addressed elsewhere. If so then can somebody point me in the right direction?
Views: 1745
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Russ Worthington on
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John,
This reply isn't in the right plnoe, don't know what Genealogy Wise is doing.
Please let us know how the new download works.
Russ
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Permalink Reply by John on
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Hi Russ,
All seems well. Media download seems to have completed with a Media: Complete message. Have had a quick check and it looks as if I have a full complement. Congratulations Ancestry.com.
Thank you too - I appreciate it.
Now, on with the research!
John
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John,
Great. Thanks for the update.
Good luck,
Russ
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Permalink Reply by Al Grosser on
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I've also had issues with sync. I have determined that you may experience a sync failure if you are viewing the family tree in Ancestry.com at the same time that you are syncing from FTM 2012. I find it works much better is you are logged into Ancestry.com, but on the Home page, and not accessing the tree being sync'd.
I also sync often with fewer outstanding changes, just in case I need to fix the tree when a sync fails.
Re-uploading the tree is not something I want to do. I currently have 36 people invited to my tree as guests, about have of which have accepted the invite. The first time I had to re-upload the tree, I had to invite everyone all over again, which was not a fun process. Inviting an existing Ancestry.com user to the new tree (do this before removing the old tree or you may lose the list of those invited) doesn't work properly (I've already reported this problem to Ancestry Tech Support), so you have to invite them by e-mail address, then re-link them to the existing person in the tree, and if you want set the nickname for them again, as well as their role. It's a painful process, and one that gets worse as you add people to view your tree. I'm hoping that Ancestry comes up with a better way to re-invite people to a tree that had to be re-uploaded from FTM, one in which doesn't require the person to accept the invitation if they have already accepted it for the previous version of the tree, as weel as maintains their nickname, role, and link to the existing person in the tree.
Based on that, for me, it's better if I try to fix the error than to re-upload.
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Thank you for you reply Al. It's good to know that it is probably not something I'm doing wrong. Thanks for the tip to improve stability.
I also synch often and, as you do, I download rather than re-upload the tree.
I'm not sure what you mean by `
it's better if I try to fix the error than to re-upload'. I didn't realise that there was a way to fix an error once synch had failed except to download again. Can you explain?
John
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After a sync failure where some of the data has gone over, but not all, I've had to clean things up a bit. In one case, I ended up with duplicate facts and sources on a person I recently added facts to. The first set uploaded from FTM the first time when the sync failed. FTM still showed that a sync was needed. Ancestry.com said the tree was in the process of being updated. I cancelled the update on Ancestry.com, then attempted another sync in FTM. The second time, it completed the sync successfully, but I now had duplicate facts on the tree in Ancestry.com. In order to identify the facts that I needed to keep, I modified them slightly, then synced again. I then deleted the facts on the Ancestry.com tree that weren't changed. Synced again. Then I returned the facts to their original state and synced one final time successfully. A lot of work, but much better than having to upload a new tree and re-invite everyone. Hope this helps.
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Al,
You said "I have determined that you may experience a sync failure if you are viewing the family tree in Ancestry.com at the same time that you are syncing from FTM 2012."
Are you doing this from the SAME computer?
Also, you can re-invite people who you have invited to your tree before. That option already sxists.
Russ
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Yes, I use Firefox to access the Ancestry.com web site. If I am viewing the tree in my web browser, and then try to sync the tree from FTM on the same PC at the same time, the sync fails. The FTM sync is successful if I'm not viewing the tree in the browser.
I'm talking about re-inviting someone to the same existing tree, but rather inviting them to the new uploaded tree. The function to invite someone to a tree by username that you have already invited to another tree is broken. The people never receive the invite. It only works if you invite them by e-mail address.
One note about that, be careful, if you delete the old tree before you invite everyone to the newly uploaded tree, they won't be in the list to easily select to invite them. I'm hoping that Ancestry fixes the username invite soon, which would make it a little easier. But it would also be nice if they preserved the nickname, role and link to the existing person in the tree, too.
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Al,
When I have "re-invited' people to my tree, new or old, from other tree's that I have invited them two. I don't have to reinvent them, (add them), I just pull up that list.
Russ
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Claude,
The Compact File and take advantage of the Back Up is a very good practice. There is some file maintenance doae AND have have a Back Up that you created.
Russ
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Diane,
What "Tasks" are you talking about. I must have missed that in John's Message.
If you are talking about the Task List in FTM2012, I just merged two files, both had Tasks, and the merged file ended up with both task lists as expected.
Russ
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Diane,
Thank you. I rarely work on the AMT, I use my PC most of the time and that is the only place where you can Sync the two trees. But, it's nice to know, and I have worked on my AMT, and am working with a friend on a research project, so this TreeSync is a great feature.
Russ
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