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HELP or OOPS? My file turned html and text into machine code.

#1 HELP or OOPS? My file turned html and text into machine code.

Posted by: David in Delta | Date: 2021-03-08 22:35 | IP: IP Logged

I use PSPad 5.0.4 (543) on a PC clone using Windows 10 and usually use Opera as my browser. I downloaded version 5.0.4 (543) sometime in January or February. I see there's an update available, and will probably download it today.

My issue is really my own fault - I didn't know there was a PSPad backup function available - but its default seems to be "Don't create backup files." Or at least, that's the button that was selected when I opened "Program Settings / Backup" today for the first time ever.

Having discovered that after writing my detailed problem out, I think I'll just bite the bullet and redo a couple of weeks of work, since I doubt there's anything to be done to restore my files. Nevertheless, here is my tale of woe:

This is the second file I've lost.

The first file was just an html file which I used to store my html templates. When making a new entry in my main webpage, I would copy the template from there. It was small. I lost it sometime within the past couple of weeks, but I'm gradually rewriting it.

Today, my system crashed (Windows 10, desktop PC clone). I had my hard drive version of my webpage open in Opera and in PSPad. My habit is to save the file after finishing every change, so during a crash, I shouldn't lose more than my very last entry.

I wish.

When I rebooted, the file would not reopen in Opera. I reopened it in PSPad, but ALL the html code and the text content is now just a string of zeros.

At the top is a grey header bar with:
0001 0203 0405 0607 0809 0A0B 0C0D 0E0F 0123456789ABCDEF

The usual View option for line numbers is greyed out. Where the line numbers would normally be, on the left, is a grey column of 7 characters, beginning with 000000, then 0000010, then 0000020, continuing like that until it ends thousands of rows later with 1005330.

Each row begins with the 7 character grey column, followed by eight groups of zeroes followed by 16 dots:
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................

The last row is not complete, it's:
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................

Just before my system crashed, I noticed a column of "pipe" symbols ( | ) starting to form near the upper right corner of the text window of PSPad.

My html file is about 16mb, with 26,000 or more rows of data arranged in seventy or so 11-column 365-row tables. (Its a chronology with entries for every day for over 50 years. I need it as one file because of the way I work and to make the data easily searchable by my users.)

I've been using PSPad since 2012 or 2014, and these two "accidents" are the first time this has happened. While I might think today's file was just too big for PSPad to handle, that doesn't explain what happened last week to the much smaller template file.

The html file shows up in Windows file manager as "date modified" today, at the time the system crashed. It shows as 16,405 kb, just about what it should be.

So, questions and suggestions:

1./ I can recover all the work I did until February 28, since I can download the file I uploaded then, but I've lost dozens of hours of work I've done in March. Is there any way to "read" the "new" file and convert back to a text file? (Searching the Forum seems to indicate the answer is no.)

2./ I was not aware of PSPad's backup option, and it seems the default setting is "Don't create backup files. I think it would be better to default to creating backups, and letting users choose not to, instead of the other way around.

3./ Opening the file in a text editor, it's blank. Opening it in Notepad++ just displays the word NUL in place of each 0000 I see in PSPad. I think either PSPad or Windows overwrote every character of text and html code with hexadecimal 0000 0000. Why would they do that?

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PSPad is the easiest and best html editor I have used, but it's very complicated for the lay user like me. I wish this hadn't happened, but we learn from our mistakes.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-03-08 22:44 by David in Delta.

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#2 Re: HELP or OOPS? My file turned html and text into machine code.

Posted by: David in Delta | Date: 2021-03-08 23:29 | IP: IP Logged

Maybe all is not lost.

When I closed the file, PSPad said the file had been changed, did I want to reopen it. When I selected yes, it opened with what looks like my text and html code in the column headed 0123456789ABCDEF.

I still have to figure out how to show only the contents of that column, and none of the hex code. I'll post an update if I succeed.

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#3 Re: HELP or OOPS? My file turned html and text into machine code.

Posted by: pspad | Date: 2021-03-09 07:47 | IP: IP Logged

Hello

We talked about this problem some time ago.
Symptoms points to problem with computer or harddisk. If "something" changes file content on the background, it's not a problem in any application.

Are you working on big file over year without any backup of your important files out of your harddisk?

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