BaseCamp 4.6.2 update - a warning

[GraemeMcC]

My version of BaseCamp updated itself today (1st time I'd used it since saving all my Tracks after PBP 2015).
It also replaced my entire "Collection" of Audax & Other Rides with a blank database. Some 6400 data waypoints/tracks/routes/etc. 

Yes, I was near reduced to tears, having just logged a 2hour section of the Cheshire Cycleway Route 70 this morning (part of a longer term project to gpx the whole circular route) and transferred a series of rides from Mallorca off the eTrex into Basecamp.

1) There was no advice that the update would do this,
2) The update did not offer to backup any data automatically before or during this update install.
3) The updated version gave no help to find or re-install the previous database or collections.

My fault I guess, for not backing my Basecamp database/collections often enough. (I do keep 'exported' gpx file copies outside of Basecamp, along with all 'imported' gpx files from a variety of sources, such as Audax event files). But I was not wanting to spend hours re-building the Basecamp database of Collections, file-by-file again.

Fortunately, BaseCamp offered the opportunity to restore itself to a previous version, after a bit of digging around and, on the second attempt, returned to my Collections to their previous state. Phew! 

Moral:
Do regularly backup/export Collections data outside of Basecamp (although it could not handle my 'Audax Routes' collection of 6400 items - being too big until I broke that down into smaller chunks) and do remember to do a Basecamp Backup before invoking any updates !

[Phil W]

And that release messes up editing waypoint properties. Least it did on my PC.

[Ian H]

See what happens when I next open it.  Fortunately I don't use it for anything vital.

[Ningishzidda]

Two computing rules.

1/ “Garbage in, garbage out.”

2/ “Back up, don’t f**k up.”

[fhills]

OP, after you updated and let it restart itself, did you then close the prog yourself and then start it up again? Every time i update my basecamp, from memory, it pulls this stunt. Very funny. But the closing and reopening always forces the thing to access its (well my) database. And then all is well/normal.

Rereading your post have you now got the cheshire cycleway in there? If you have you must have managed to do what i describe above for this couldn't have come from a backup of it you had never made.

[GraemeMcC]

After the update install and realisation that the database had vanished, I closed then restarted the program so see if that would fix it/return rides. It didn't.
I then tried a manual restore from within BaseCamp to previous backups which it did, but these were just database (rides) files approx. 9months old, so missing the most recent data.
Eventually, after a bit of fettling, BaseCamp offered me an option to re-install its previous incarnation, which I did, re-started (or re-booted - can't remember which and memory was blurred by the red mist that had descended) and returned the valuable current database.

So that was my lesson learned. All "Collections" have been exported and current Basecamp is backed up. Funnily enough though, the Version listed on "About BaseCamp" is the new 4.6.2 so something odd has been going on: either the "restore" that I selected was not the full software suite, or it reports wrongly. Or perhaps I'd missed a key interim update which 4.6.2 couldn't cope with? Who knows... Maybe Win10 has intervened too?