Yesterday, we suffered a likely motherboard failure in the 27" iMac that was being used for GS7. Luckily, the entire computer was backed up to a Time Machine disk. We reformatted a spare 21.5" iMac using the Time Machine clone. Everything appeared to restore just fine overnight, however, we’ve now got a blank Listings View window within the GS7 app.
How do we get back to ‘normal’ once again so we can start new listings?
Unresolved still but an update. I saw another post that referenced a similar problem within a GS8 Beta. So I followed that advice, Quit the GS7 app, then restarted it and held the Control key as it loaded. A window with options came up. Decided to be ‘safe’ and not perform any of the tasks. Clicked Continue with all boxes unchecked. Then another window popped up stating the GS Database was corrupt. The app started loading instantly with NO windows at all.
Was able to finally get back to the DeBug area and told it to Auto Repair Corrupt Databases. Still getting blank window. ALSO, if I try to Duplicate a Listing OR change the Listing View, the entire GS7 app crashes.
So, yeah, this is not good.
p.s. Clicking on a listing and then selecting Show Listing in Browser works just fine, so the links to eBay are still there. The listings within the App are just visible and therefore not able to be edited (or duplicated).
p.p.s. As the screenshot shows, the whole top bar is screwy with only two items showing. Been that way since the Time Machine backup restore was done.
Bad matter, happened something very similar to me in the past. What I would suggest is:
do not rely on automatic Time Machine backup. Don’t know why but the automatic restore process bring corrupt database lots of time
if you don’t have a manual backup, go back in Time Machine, copy the com.iwascoding folder manually WHILE GS IS CLOSED (cmd-q), then substitute the actual com.iwascoding folder in the library. This worked for me in the past
if it still does not work, a debug feature might help, but it’s better if you wait for GS team support in this case (I wouldn’t suggest the auto repair corrupted database command, never used it, while others were able to fix issues)…
Hi TNS,
the first thing I would try is to transfer the GarageSale database folder from the Time Machine to your current system manually. It seems that the “automatic” restore process didn’t work that well.
*Please note: The User Library is hidden by default. To make it visible select “Show View Options” from the Finder’s “View” menu and then activate the “Show Library Folder” there.
On this website the steps are described with screenshots:
(Scroll down to “Access the Library the Easy Way (OS X Mavericks and later)”)
Now open the Time Machine hard disk:
Open a Finder window and click on your Time Machine in the left sidebar (it is probably listed under “Network”). If you don’t see it there (and you’re sure the Time Machine is connected), please check your Finder Preferences > Sidebar. You maybe first need to make the Network devices visible there.
Once opened in the Finder browse through your Time Machine and open your Mac’s backup (it might take some time to load) and then find your most recent backup folder (one before the motherboard failure happened).
In that backup folder browse in your User Library* to
Macintosh HD/Users/yourUserName/Library/Containers
and find the “com.iwascoding.garagesale7” folder.
Now, go back to your Mac:
On your Mac in
Macintosh HD/Users/yourUserName/Library/Containers
rename the folder
com.iwascoding.garagesale7
to something like
com.iwascoding.garagesale7-Corrupted
You now simply need to transfer that folder “com.iwascoding.garagesale7” from the Time Machine Backup (see step 3) to your Mac here:
Macintosh HD/Users/yourUserName/Library/Containers
If done, try to start GarageSale 7. It should start up with the database transferred from the backup.
Hope this helps,
Kristian
Will give it a try. Gonna take a few hours via WiFi as that the file is more than 35GB.
Would be nice to have a way to archive really old listings and reduce that file size in the future.
That’s due to listings photos. You can delete older sold listings, this will delete photos and reduce GB
Except we sometimes have to pull up old listings to copy information. Or to look at previous sold prices. Deleting photos from listings might help, but only if can do it in a batch of multiple listings at once.
I’ve never had it clarified, but am assuming that when old listings are deleted, that those records (sold date, price, buyer’s info, etc.) are also deleted from the reporting area on GS.
Yes
Highlight all listings in which you want to delete photos and press cmd-X
Unfortunately Kristian your solution is no longer possible. Time Machine has removed all previous backups after the restoration, so our files only go back to yesterday now.
Simply put, are we screwed with the old GS database, and now have to start over from scratch?
I was able to access the Time Machine files today manually. Pulled out the GS7 container which was quite a lot smaller than the one on the iMac that is so corrupted. Appears that some of the preference files were updated since the restore, but the vast majority predate restore. Will await word on how to proceed before trying to swap it out and remove any of the Aug. 22 files.
Oops. Found a bunch of Aug 22 files within the Application Support subfolder too.
@TNS don’t touch what’s inside that folder!!! If you can go back in Time Machine before the restore, copy the entire folder com.iwascoding.garagesale7, do not remove anything inside. Then, while GS is closed, copy somewhere else the actual corrupted database for security before replacing it with the one from Time Machine. Replace the entire com.iwascoding.garagesale7 folder, not inside folders.
Not possible anymore. Even though I clicked for the replacement iMac to inherit the other iMac’s Time Machine backups, that does not appear to have happened. Only goes back to the day of the recovery. Even when I access the drive via the Network sidebar, I can only find the GS7 DB from Aug. 22nd.
This is quite worrying… I don’t see many other solutions except recovering from the HD previous backups or repairing somehow the corrupted database…
Thanks, but at least it is less of an issue now that eBay forced GTC listings on all of us. Had we still been doing 30-day listings, then losing the DB and the 1000+ listings would be a nightmare. Now, should I have to start over with a blank slate DB, I think I’ll only have to rebuild a handful of templates and less than 100 inactive GTC listings and 7-day auctions.
Well, if I had lost my 10000+ listing database, I guess I would throw me in the river, GTC or not GTC. This means you won’t be no more able to modify those listings, manage orders within GS, change design and manage your stock in a decent way (because ebay site is not decent at all for this work…). All this except importing again all listings from ebay into GS but that would not be the same, in particular for managing design. This might be maybe a solution for you.
Anyway, I envy you for your serenity after loosing all your backup 
I hope you could find a solution…
You should be able to use the GarageSale “Import from eBay” command…
If you were using the same “designs” for all, you can then Select All listings and change them all at the same time. Not exactly perfect, but probably better than nothing…
Neal
Serene only because the second partition on the drive is personally much more important to me. So far, Time Machine has failed on all attempts to restore that side of the drive. I should be able to copy the files manually though, then reinstall the few applications I need. (Not the first time I’ve been down this route in 25+ years of Mac ownership.)
Nor is this the first freak out with our GarageSale app, with a high success rate of recovery thanks to the developers’ efforts on here.
Thanks. Yes, we use only one theme design now. A few months back we converted all the listings to one uniform design choice, with minor variances in the templates we use. Since the move to GTC, about the only time we access the older listings is to adjust prices or fix typos in the descriptions.
You could try to send us the “best looking” version of your GarageSale.leveldb database directory via DropBox, we can have a look at it if there’s anything we can do for you. Maybe some listings can still be extracted from it?
Thanks for the offer @ilja and @kristian. You two have been way more helpful over the years than the lowly amount we’ve paid for the program justifies.
I am 95% certain that I have found my own fix for the ‘corrupted’ backup from Time Machine. I went into GS7 and exported all the listings. Then I wiped GS7 files clear from the Library folder. Restarted the app, inputted my license code, relinked to eBay and PayPal and then have begun importing the listings from the saved exported files. So far, the only hiccup is that I forgot to recreate my Text Snippet at first. Other than that, the listings are automatically linked with eBay and color coded as such. Plus I am able to update listings within GS7 and send the revisions to eBay with no issues.
Appearing like an easily acceptable minimal amount of time will need to be invested into this solution. The only thing I will not be recovering are around 8000 sold listings that I decided not to export.
Honestly I am AMAZED that it is working!!
