1) It depends on what you zipped and how you unzipped.  I personally primarily do backups with Sage 50.  When restoring files on my system, I use Winzip to unpack the files.  I find it faster and easier and I can't remember the last time it went wrong. However, when you zipped the files yourself, did you zip the *.sai file and *.saj folder?  Did you include all subfolders of the *.saj.  If the answer is Yes then when you unzipped did you maintain the directory structure?  If the answer is yes, then it should have worked.  Can it be fixed, it depends on what you zipped.  I would try unzipping again to a different location and see if it works.

2) You can go to Help and search for Import General Journal Entries.  It will show you how to import them as general journal entries.  However, if they were originally made in Purchases or Sales modules, then the details would not be imported and you will have problems with the import to A/R and A/P control accounts on the balance sheet.  Those entries would need to be imported separately in a different format (available in the Knowledgebase).  There is no way to import Payments or Receipts.  For 37 entries, I'd re-enter them with Copy and Paste.  It's less than an hour's work.  That's assuming you posted a lot of entries in 2021.

Hello Richard,

1) It was zipped with Winzip, saved to an external hard drive. When I needed to use it again everything was unzipped - .Sai and everything in the folder .SAJ, into the original folder on my hard drive. Still  the error message appears. Does Sage have a hidden file somewhere in the hard drive that correspond to the working files, e.g. somewhere in Appdata? And these corresponding files were written over when I continued with Sage?

2) That's exactly what I did - re-entered the journals manually. It really takes less time than trying to use Sage's functionalities because there are always contingencies. It's never as simple as it sounds.

Thanks! 

Sidney said:

Does Sage have a hidden file somewhere

Yes there are extra files in various places but none that control the database itself except for the Connection Manager program.  Why did you restore when the file was still in the original location?  There should have been no need unless you deleted the original and didn't mention it in your message above.

In the *.saj folder there is the errorlog.txt file.  What does it say about the error?  Try opening the file and if you get the error it will be last few lines in the file.  You can open it in notepad.exe.

I zip and unzip company files all the time.  I'm very used to knowing when and when not to overwrite an older file.  I would try unzipping to a new location instead of overwriting old files.

Sidney said:

Does Sage have a hidden file somewhere

Yes there are extra files in various places but none that control the database itself except for the Connection Manager program.  Why did you restore when the file was still in the original location?  There should have been no need unless you deleted the original and didn't mention it in your message above.

In the *.saj folder there is the errorlog.txt file.  What does it say about the error?  Try opening the file and if you get the error it will be last few lines in the file.  You can open it in notepad.exe.

I zip and unzip company files all the time.  I'm very used to knowing when and when not to overwrite an older file.  I would try unzipping to a new location instead of overwriting old files.

Richard said: "Why did you restore when the file was still in the original location?  There should have been no need unless you deleted the original and didn't mention it in your message above..."

I don't know if I mentioned before, the previously backed-up 2020 file may be an outdated one, and further versions with more entries since then were all saved as zipped files. Then the outdated 2020 file was rolled over to 2021, meaning it's open bal. is also outdated. That's why I wanted to checked the more recent 2020 zipped files and find the true finalized end-of-year version, and re-do 2021 all over again.

I never overwrite my existing files. Test files like the zipped ones are always copied to in a different folder. Back to the issue at hand, Sage can't open the unzipped SAI & SAJ with the error message "...a required data file is missing. Check your data directory to be sure the files are there…” That’s why I suspect there is a corresponding since it mentioned DATA DIRECTORY.

The Error Message in the SAJ folder is pretty big but it semms they were all the same except “…starting as process nnnnn…”(nnnnn are different numbers”. I don’t know what these messages mean. Please advise.

Thanks!

*********************************************************************************************************************

2021-04-26T18:42:06.940525Z 0 [Note] C:\Program Files (x86)\Winsim\ConnectionManager\MySqlBinary\5.7.18\mysql\mysqld.exe (mysqld 5.7.18-enterprise-commercial-advanced) starting as process 22172 ...

2021-04-26T23:06:36.475321Z 0 [Warning] TIMESTAMP with implicit DEFAULT value is deprecated. Please use --explicit_defaults_for_timestamp server option (see documentation for more details).

2021-04-26T23:06:36.475321Z 0 [Warning] 'NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER' sql mode was not set.

2021-04-26T23:06:36.475321Z 0 [Note] --secure-file-priv is set to NULL. Operations related to importing and exporting data are disabled

2021-04-26T23:06:36.475321Z 0 [Note] C:\Program Files (x86)\Winsim\ConnectionManager\MySqlBinary\5.7.18\mysql\mysqld.exe (mysqld 5.7.18-enterprise-commercial-advanced) starting as process 16992 ...

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Warning] TIMESTAMP with implicit DEFAULT value is deprecated. Please use --explicit_defaults_for_timestamp server option (see documentation for more details).

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Warning] 'NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER' sql mode was not set.

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Note] --secure-file-priv is set to NULL. Operations related to importing and exporting data are disabled

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Note] C:\Program Files (x86)\Winsim\ConnectionManager\MySqlBinary\5.7.18\mysql\mysqld.exe (mysqld 5.7.18-enterprise-commercial-advanced) starting as process 10168 ...2021-04-26T23:06:36.475321Z 0 [Note] --secure-file-priv is set to NULL. Operations related to importing and exporting data are disabled

2021-04-26T23:06:36.475321Z 0 [Note] C:\Program Files (x86)\Winsim\ConnectionManager\MySqlBinary\5.7.18\mysql\mysqld.exe (mysqld 5.7.18-enterprise-commercial-advanced) starting as process 16992 ...

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Warning] TIMESTAMP with implicit DEFAULT value is deprecated. Please use --explicit_defaults_for_timestamp server option (see documentation for more details).

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Warning] 'NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER' sql mode was not set.

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Note] --secure-file-priv is set to NULL. Operations related to importing and exporting data are disabled

2021-04-27T00:59:25.299384Z 0 [Note] C:\Program Files (x86)\Winsim\ConnectionManager\MySqlBinary\5.7.18\mysql\mysqld.exe (mysqld 5.7.18-enterprise-commercial-advanced) starting as process 10168 ...

BTW my Win10 system files(e.g. AppData) are also zipped and backed up every day. So if the data directories are there I can also extract them where necessary.

It looks like the file has not been able to open since April 27/21.  But what you have shown appears normal.

The data file is the *.saj directory.  The *.sai file is a small pointer file that shows the program where the data is stored.  As long as the newly unzipped version of the *.saj contains all the correct folders (eg. simply, mysql, etc. - and the list of folders is different depending on the version of  Sage 50 you are using)  and files then it should open.  Because it is not at this point, then I would have to see the file directly myself to see if I could figure out what is wrong.  I've seen the actual reason because a file like \simply\tjeah01.frm is missing but everything else is there.

I have to assume that when you zipped it, you included both the *.sai file and *.saj folder with all it's subfolders.  You clearly are someone who knows how to zip and unzip, so I am not that concerned you missed anything here.  I like the fact you don't overwrite previous versions, it eliminates potential problems with versioning.  Unfortunately, I am not sure what might be wrong in your case.

It's possible the Windows Event Viewer may have recorded an error if you know how to look through it.  It's a longshot but it might have some detail.  Try opening the file and then look through the Events to see if there is some error triggered at the same time.  Be aware that it will give you some Information messages that appear to be errors but they are the same as what you see in the Errorlog.txt file and are usually normal (eg. RSA private key not found, plugins disabled, Blackhole disabled, etc).

I'd like to send you some screen shots and error log after Sage failed to open the unzipped files. How can I do that? Thanks.

My email address is in the contact area of my profile on this site.