7 replies to this topic

[PatrickSibs]

Good day is there a way to recover my study notes i believe they are synchronized with a verse but is the drop down menu is empty .

i am using a mac

 

[Gary Timm]

Hi Patrick,

 

I saw that your question had been up here for a while without a reply, so I though I would help. 

 

To begin with, the majority of e-Sword users are of the PC gender, and not of Mac, and I'm guessing that's why this went unanswered. The other thing is, finding a solution may require a bit of digging. But as a website and forum designed for all e-Sword users, its implementation also falls inline with all questions. And as I, too, am part of this community of users, I greatly apologize for any delay in replying.

 

Needless to say, backups are always important and should be done regularly. Losing material from seven years of work can be devastating to say the least. I'm not sure if that's what happened related to your case, but it's possible that e-Sword just "lost sight" of your files. The most typical way that this could have happened is that you accidentally moved or renamed the folder where e-Sword retains it files. The other possibility is that you may have unintentionally deleted them. Either way you may still be in luck, that is, if you haven't emptied your Trash Bin.

 

Typically, the e-Sword files for Study and Topic Notes are hidden to prevent accidental deletion. In order to access them and determine if the file you need is present, open up a Finder window, hold down the Option key, then head up to the Menu Bar and click on Go. In the drop-down list, you should see Library... click on this. With the Library window open, navigate to Containers\net.e-sword.e-Sword-X\Data\Documents\

 

Once there, say a prayer to the good Lord, and look for a file called "study.noti". This is where your personal study notes are located. By the way, this is also where your Topic Notes are located (if you've created any of those) in a file called "topic.noti".

 

Verify that this file is present and that its size is above 0kb. In other words, this means that the file should show several kilobytes of data, reflecting your work of seven years. If it is not there, or if it is size is 0kb, you might want to look for this same file within your Trash Bin. If so, and you find it, then place it in the same exact location mentioned above. Of course if you do regular backups via Time Machine, this file might also be located there, and can be retrieved from the same location mentioned above in the backed up files. In a similar manner you can attempt to retrieve (or re-associate) this file via the Menu Bar option in e-Sword X via "File > User Files > Import..." Just be careful, as once these files are replaced and overwritten, there's no going back.

 

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions, please post again. By the way, if you're unable to access the file path mentioned above, then you, or someone else, may have accidentally renamed these folders. Just do some searching and you might find a way to fix your problem. Of course we should already know, searching to fix our problems is what the good Lord always desires from us... God bless. 

Edited by Gary Timm, 24 September 2017 - 11:35 AM.

[Ernest Smith_226497]

This is to 

Gary Timm

Dear Gary,

This has happened to me twice in the last year.  Prior to that I had never lost my study notes and unfortunately never backed them up.  I teach a men's Bible study in my home and use esword constantly.

Does your suggestion for the Mac apply to a PC also?  I'm not very IT literate so it takes me a long time to try to ferret out pathways.  Rick Meyers advised I look in TOPIC.TOPX but couldn't find a pathway for that on my Windows 8.1.

Thanks for your help.

Ernest Smith

[Gary Timm]

Hi Earnest,

 

The procedure is slightly different on the Windows 8.1 platform, so I will attempt to explain. And since you are not, as you say, IT literate, it may help to have someone at your side that is familiar to Windows to assist, as this may be the only chance you have in retrieving your hard-earned notes.

 

First off, with Windows open, go to you menu bar at the bottom and click on the icon that looks like a folder (usually the 3rd from the left). After this opens, look up the to the top right corner and you should see a search box. Type in the exact words "TOPIC.TOPX", without quotation marks, then hit search. It may take a couple of minutes to complete the search, but if this file shows up, then we can verify if your file exists.

 

Underneath the highlighted file, there should be a reference to the size of the file (Example - Size: 189 KB). The default file size for an fresh e-Sword installation is typically 2 KB, meaning that it is a blank, with no notes. The file you are looking for, which is YOUR file, and which holds YOUR notes, should be well-above 2 KB file size. If you find this file, take note of where it is located, and write down the path. The information for this is also listed underneath the highlighted file, the same as the size information (Example: C:\Desktop\Documents\e-Sword). After you do this, stop, and do nothing more, then close down the window. Again, this is only to verify the file exists and that it is above 2 KB in size.

 

Please let me know what you find, and if its positive news, then we can move on to help e-Sword locate this file so you can retrieve your notes.

 

Best, and may the good Lord bless...

[Ernest Smith_226497]

Thank you for your help!

I was able to get a bunch of TOPX files up but the only "esword" one had just the 2kb designation.  There were many "Windows" files with more but no higher kb number than 257.

[Mike Taylor]

Ernest,

 

I think you should be looking for the study.notx file for study notes. I think the other file (topic) would be for topic notes. They are in different files.

[Gary Timm]

Earnest, Mike may be correct.

 

Where did you store your notes, under the "Topics Notes" tab in e-Sword, or in the "Study Notes" tab?

 

Blessings...

[APsit190]

Below is a video that I created regarding backups. It will show you perhaps what could be regarded as the easiest way anyone can do a back up.

 

 

 

For best viewing, maximize the video to full screen.