Re: Saving changes and updates.

Great! The Gramps working file is a database file. Gramps stopped operating directly from the stored XML with version 2 because it was simply too slow. However XML is inherently more stable & portable than database files. So XML (compressed or plain text) is used for backup, data exchange & recovery.

Please check your Preferences for the database path. A autogenerated uniquely-named subfolder is created in that directory for each tree. (A text file in each folder identifies its human-friendly tree name.) 

Gramps 5.0.x defaults to a BSDDB database backend with SQLite as an alternative. 5.1.x switched to SQLite as the default.

5.1.4 is the current (and recommended) version. Always backup before (even incrementally) upgrading. 

Welcome back! 
-Brian 
 
  On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 20:56, gordon cooper<[email protected]> wrote:    
Brian,
 
 
Thank you for the quick reply.
 
I am using MX-Linux a system based on Debian. Have been using this for several years and as one of the group
 that wrote the User Manual, am familiar with MX.
 
Your comments about XML files may well be the key to my problems.  Did a clearing out of files a few years back and
 saved to Gramps data to XML as what appeared to be a safe backup.  Now I am not sure how to get to an up to date
 Gramps tht will save my updates.  I did see the option to discard changes when exiting and was careful not to use this.
 
 
After reading your response several times am thinking that I am trying to save the updates to an  XML backup file,
 instead of a now non-existent on this computer, proper Gramps record.
 
Will switch over to the newer forum as you suggest.
 
Gordon,
 

 
 On 12/04/22 1:23 pm, [email protected] wrote:
  
 
 Gordon, 
  
  Please tell us which OS you are running. (There might be differences in written protection schemes & file locations to check.)  
  
  The XML files (in .Gramps & .gpkg formats) are only used for backup & export. It is easy to lose track of where the destination folder is for these files and the datestamps in the auto-backup filenames can throw you off also. 
  
  But, since you specifically mention inspecting XML files, we know that you've omitted many steps in described your workflow. XML generations are NOT part of a normal exit workflow. 
  
  There IS an option to discard changes when exiting. But it would be a surprise if this is the underlying cause... it is in an out-of-the-way spot of the interface.  
  
  Rather than chasing down a bunch of our wild guesses, how about describing the actual workflow?  
  
  For this support question, you might also want to switch to the newer Discourse-powered forum. It was started a couple years ago. That GUI offers a bit more flexibility than a mailist in linking the pertinent wiki-pages & allowing screen capture illustrations.  https://discourse.gramps-project.org 
  
 -Brian 
  
 
  On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 20:03, gordon cooper <[email protected]> wrote:   Greetings, I am very new to this list but am reasonably familiar with Gramps.  I used Gramps for several years, until 1918, was busy with an archiving project so did nothing more with Gramps until this week, four years later. Now find that I can not update my files. I can enter changes to family trees but they are not saved when I quit. Obviously, I am well out of date and would like a little guidance. Have saved the old data to xml files, a check shows that am using Gramps 5.0.1. 
  What to do next?
  Many thanks,
  Gordon
  Tauranga, New Zealand.  
     
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