You were having this problem before, after performing a sequence of procedures/clicks and/or editing functions in FR ... at that time, this was an intermittent problem we could not help you to resolve as it did not happen when our R&D person was communicating with you on the phone while your were editing another FS.

Normally, the message "invalid file format" occurs if the FS was created in a newer version of FR than what is used to open the FS. It could also occur if someone has opened the file in Excel or another spreadsheet, even if it was not saved in that format.

Using the saved copy of the original FS, open it and save it as another file name, this time, try only using 8 chars as the filename (of course, the first 3 chars MUST be "GL!".). Then try to open it again.

We have many installations of Adagio out there now. The ones that experience the most problems have been due to environmental issues or improper installation/setup and the odd ones are working with damaged data.

I am not saying that this is what is happening in your case, but there are some things you can check:

- If there is more than one workstation accessing Adagio, ensure that the method that is used to start Adagio is pointing to the correct installation of Adagio. (ie The correct drive/directory on the SERVER which points to Softrak\ALWIN\alwin.exe for example, or Softrak\ALWIN\ALFinRep.exe for the Financial Reporter.)

- If you are running Ledger/FR locally, then saving the data (spec) files to the network drive, then make sure the version you have installed on your hard drive is the SAME as what everyone else is using.

- Make sure that if a backup is run at night, that it does nothing to modify the file structure of the data files. (This had been an issue a few months ago at your site - the backup procedure was inadvertently only taking the first 8 chars of the filename, thus when you had restored from the backup, the GL specs could not be accessed properly and returned the same "invalid file format" error message. Adagio supports long file names, but if in doubt, use 8.

- What is the date of the ALFinRep.exe file (in Softrak\ALWIN directory) that you are using? Is it the same one that everyone uses?

- Do you have any setting/option configured on your machine that could change the attributes of files during the save process? This may cause a similar error to occur. (nothing I try will enable me to reproduce the same error using the same version/release of FR to save the file & open it again. I am using Win2000 Pro. I tried using long filenames and changing the attributes, then I even sent it to both my co-techsupport reps and they had no problem opening the files.)

- Perhaps get another station (W98) to open the orig FS and save as a new filename (same as you did) and see if they can open it again (make sure they save it onto the network data dir, so you can access it). If they can open it again ok, go back to your station and try opening this file - can you?

- If you still can't, please send the original file and the 2 saved ones to us so we can test here.

Please let us know what happens.

You can email me direct at:
techsupport@softrak.com .

Regards.

[This message has been edited by Softrak Support (edited 02-12-2001).]