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Contents : Overviews : Recovery
File : Repair collection

File : Repair collection makes it possible to recover from errors in your collection.  Repair collection goes through all data in the collection, looking for errors and plugging the holes. As much as a spell-checker can fix a badly written text, Repair collection can fix some problems produced by hard disk malfunction, viruses, or errors in copying files. If Repair collection cannot fix a problem, you will have to return to your most recent backup. Remember to backup often!

You can quickly execute Repair collection by choosing Ctrl+F12 or clicking the red-cross icon on the Actions toolbar.

Note that recovery is only possible in full access mode in an unlocked SuperMemo. If the full access is turned off, use Tools : Options or press Ctrl+Alt+O and select Data access : Access mode : Full access.

Integrity problems in a collection may appear in case of hardware or system software problems. Bad clusters, lost sectors, data corruption, etc. can often be remedied by replacing affected files (e.g. corrupted Mpeg file, etc.). However, if the problem occurs in SuperMemo index files or files storing optimization data used by repetition spacing algorithm, only File : Repair collection can remedy the problem.

Important! Unless you have a recent backup handy, you should check the backup option before running Repair collection. You should never abort SuperMemo manually (e.g. with Ctrl+Alt+Del : Task Manager : End Process). This is particularly true during Repair collection. If you abort the repair operation while files are being rebuilt, your collection may be damaged beyond repair!

Before you begin the recovery, choose appropriate recovery options in Recovery Options dialog box.

Repair collection does not recover from some error types. Here are some errors that are not remedied with Repair collection:

Note: If you encounter problems that could not be remedied with File : Repair collection (except for those listed above), please report it. Remember to make a back-up of copy of the damaged collection, e.g. with File : Tools : Quick backup or better yet with File : Copy collection (Ctrl+Shift+C)