There is a problem with data entry in v6.13 of Recorder 6 which will probably go unnoticed until data is exported. If you enter a Biotope when entering an observation using Data Entry – Enter a species record the biotope determination date is left blank when it should be set to the date of the species observation. When I attempted to export a survey (export type NBN Access database (zipped)) containing one of these observations it failed with an unhandled error saying: Exception path: EOleException : List index out of bounds (0). After editing this by changing the blank date to the correct date the export worked.

There are also problems with exporting data from v6.13 and importing it into v6.10. In v6.13 of Recorder 6 when new data is entered using Data Entry – Enter a species record, or a recording card, the determination type on all observations defaults to ‘Unconfirmed’, a new system supplied item in v6.13. If you export this data (export type NBN Access database (zipped) or NBN Data (xml)) from v6.13 and import it into v6.10 the occurrences fail to import because this determination type is not in v6.10. As ‘Unconfirmed’ is system supplied it is not included in the export file but it is not in the receiving system either so any observations that use it can’t be imported. If ‘Unconfirmed’ is changed to say ‘Observation’ (system supplied in v6.10 and v6.13) then, barring other problems, the data will import. An obvious solution is to upgrade the receiving system to v6.13.

When testing this, ImportRejects.txt contained the following message for a location: Failed to insert JNCCDEV100000030 into LOCATION / Database Error Message: Row cannot be located for updating. Some values may have been changed since it was last read. But the location in question was not in the receiving system to start with and it imported satisfactorily so it shouldn’t have appeared in ImportRejects.txt.

When doing exports using the export type NBN Data (xml) it is worth noting that the export file will not contain as much data as when using NBN Access database (zipped), e.g. grid squares for locations are left out. If you need to export data from Recorder 6 for importing into Recorder 2002 you have to use the export type NBN Data (xml) because NBN Access database (zipped) can’t cope with the differences in the database between the 2 systems, i.e. the addition of the Custodian field to most tables in Recorder 6.

Another problem in v6.10 and v6.13 is that the parents of the parents of locations may not be included in the export file. The locations for all the survey events and samples are included for the selected observations, and their parents, but not the parents of the parents unless other observations bring them in. To resolve this problem you need to identify the missing locations in the export file, i.e. find Parent_keys in the Location table that don’t have their own entry in the Location table, and import these before importing the other file. If you put these in a rucksack you will be able to use it to export the required locations from the system that the other export came from.

Given these problems I suggest that users use Help – Summary Info before and after an import to see how much data has been imported. If the export file is a zipped Access database you can open it to see how much data it contains and therefore how many items should have been added to the key tables unless they are duplicates.

Most of these issues were found by doing some basic tests on exchanging data to test for backward compatibility so the list is not exhaustive. If they cause problems for you, a recorder reseller (approved expert) should be able to assist, depending on how you want to resolve them.