The Linguist's Shoebox

Integrated data management and analysis for the field linguist

Year 2000 and risk of data loss in Shoebox 3 and 4

Shoebox 3 has a serious problem with date stamps after the year 2000 that can cause data loss. Date stamp fields will have extraneous characters (output from an overrun condition). For example, if you edit a data record on the first day of the year 2000, its date stamp will be something like 01/Jan/100@#$ (if the date stamp feature is turned on). The extraneous characters can include end of file characters (also known as EOF, ^Z, d26, x1A).

Caution: Shoebox ignores all data that follows an end of file character.

Shoebox 4 can have a similar problem, but only if your computer's date gets set wrong (to 2038 or later). On the Macintosh, this problem sometimes occurs if the date gets set to 1980 or earlier.

If you use date stamps, we recommend that you upgrade to Shoebox 5.

Determining whether you are at risk

If you are not using date stamps, you are okay.
If you are using Shoebox 5, you are okay.
If you are using date stamps in Shoebox 3 and have opened databases since 31 December 1999, you might have lost some of your data. Even it does not appear that you have lost data yet, do not continue to use date stamps in Shoebox 3.
If you are using date stamps in Shoebox 4 and your computer's date has somehow gotten set wrong, you might have lost some of your data. If you have not lost data, you can continue to use Shoebox 4 safely as long as you make certain that your computer's date is correct.

Finding out which Shoebox version you are using

Start Shoebox.
Choose About Shoebox on the Help menu. (In the About Shoebox dialog box, notice the version number.)
Click OK (to close the About Shoebox dialog box).
If you are using version 3.x:
Choose Exit on the File menu.
If Shoebox asks you to confirm saving changes to database files, click No.
Do not start Shoebox 3 again.

Recovering lost data

If you exit Shoebox without saving changes, no data will be lost.
If you save the database, records could be lost. However, Shoebox makes a .bak file that contains the original data (Windows version only).
If you have saved the database multiple times before you discover the problem, records could have been lost even from the .bak file. You will probably have to restore the data from backups that you have made yourself.

EOF characters can be removed using the Consistent Changes (CC) program. You might need to get help from your local computer support. Use CC version 8 (included in the Extras folder on the Shoebox CD-ROM). Here is the Consistent Changes table:
begin > binary d26 > "" c Remove end of file characters

Year 2000 compatibility