*** READ THIS BEFORE DOWNLOADING 1/1/11 ***

[njcurveball]

HTR has a single year directory structure. This is even more important this year as many people are using the Modeling feature in Maxvel.

If you have 1/1/10 Santa Anita files in the HTR directory and you download 1/1/11, they will be written over. Not only will they not be available for any testing, but Santa Anita may have one less race.

That means you may have a race 10 from 2010 if there is no race 10 in 2011. Just more "noise" in your modeling.

Many different users have different strategies.

I am sure other users can explain this better.


Happy New Year!
Jim

[Rick]

Use new HTR File Rat by John.

Use "Archive Files" feature and it takes care of moving out the old files before downloading the new files.

Easiest way to maintain your working directory where you are keeping your one year of race files.

Say thank you John and Happy New Year.

[EddieSweat]

Use new HTR File Rat by John.

Use "Archive Files" feature and it takes care of moving out the old files before downloading the new files.

Easiest way to maintain your working directory where you are keeping your one year of race files.

Say thank you John and Happy New Year.


Rick,

Am I correct in assuming that using the "Key Race" program for removing old files in advance of downloading newer files is no longer needed?

As long as I use the "Archive File" feature on HTR File Rat.

[Rick]

Right.

Just select Archive Files, Unzip and Download All Tracks.

I try to avoid downloading the racefiles more than once if possible.

I download yesterdays results and charts then I download todays racefiles.

I have been using it since I was doing beta testing for John.

Works like a champ.

Since I already backup my race files monthly I end up deleting the archives created by the File Rat. I am running out of free space on my 80 SSD.

I might have to give up on storing race files on SSD and just go with the slower D: drive. Will just take longer for Robot2 to do its thing. :)

[pmannet]

Is there a way of doing it other than file rat? I tried renaming the old folders as 2010 and creating new folders but that didn't work. Is file rat the only way? If it is I'll have to learn it tomorrow.

[Rick]

It depends on what you want to do.

The File Rat is not the only way.

It is the best and easiest way to maintain your working directory of the past 365 days.

Email with your idea of what you would like to do and I will offer my suggestion of how to get it done or what I think would be a better way of doing it.

At the end of each month, once I have all the racefiles and results, I copy all the files for that month, Dec 2010 in this case, to my archive directory on another drive. I save them by year by month.

The new File Rat will archive them by year for you so you don't have to do it yourself.

Of course it is always a good idea to back them up to DVD or external drive.

[brianfeldman]

I am using the March 2009 version. The files for today will not download, I have never had any problems with this version. I downloaded the new versions and was able to download todays files, but the old version is unable to get the download. Any help? Thanks.

[Rick]

If you are talking about the File Rat, what is the version at the bottom of the screen?

I don't find a Mar 2009 version of the File Rat.

[brianfeldman]

This is the version off my desktop.

[EE26]

In Key race if I click the green button and move all files older than 1 day it will create a new folder titled something like " old files 2010"

Will it just copy the 2010 files into the new " old files 2010 " folder and still leave a copy of them in the HTR folder or will it move them completely out of the HTR folder leaving it empty of 2010 files?

What happens with the HTR data folder?
Just ignore it or does it need maintenance ?

[Rick]

That info doesn't help me a bit to try and find a copy of the same version of the program you are referring to.

The only way I will find it is to know the version #.

I don't know what you have on your desktop.

Then again, if you are referring to the File Rat, it sounds like you have solved your own problem by downloading the latest version.

If you don't like the Archive Files option or the Zip option, just uncheck them.

It is as good, or better, than the earlier versions.

[brianfeldman]

Results from yesterday were downloaded, files for today will not. I have no files that would keep this from happening such as files from 1/1/2010.

[Rick]

The new File Rat does not use the same folders that KeyRace uses.

It creates a new folder named FILERAT_HTR_ARCHIVE. It then creates sub-folders for 2010, 2009, Err and UNK. It will also be creating a sub-folder 2011.

The Err folder gets files like the rch20101221.txt, scr20101202.txt and zero byte files. The rch and scr files are created by using the Scratch option in the HTR programs.

The UNK folder appears to be for files that the File Rat doesn't know what they are.

It moves the files that are a year old out of your working folder. It copies the files that more recent to the year folder they belong in.

Example: You have 365 days of race files and on the morning of 31 Dec 2010 you download the racefiles for that day. The old 31 Dec 09 race files are moved to the 2009 folder.

This morning you download the results and charts for 31 Dec 2010. The files from 31 Dec 2010 that you downloaded yesterday get copied to the 2010 folder.

The files that are a year older than what the files you are downloading get moved to the proper archive folder. The files that are less than a year older than the files you are downloading get copied to the proper archive folder.

It is designed to help you maintain a working folder containing the race files for the past year. It removes last years race files before it downloads the files for this year.

Hopefully I didn't make that more confusing for you.

If you do nothing with your HTRDATA folder, the new files will overwrite older files of the same name.

My recommendation is to save and backup your files in their extracted form. It is a pain to try and extract old HTR files. If you don't do it right you end up overwriting this years files in your HTRDATA directory.

It never hurts to backup your HTRDATA directory. You could rename it HTRDATA2010 and the next time you download files HTR would create a new HTRDATA directory.

With DVD's so cheap, I don't mess with the HTRDATA directory anymore. In past year that was a yearly ritual, reminding people to start a new HTRDATA directory. I quit doing that a few years ago.

[Rick]

Brian,

I would like to try duplicating the problem you are having, if I can.

I can't do that without knowing which version of the File Rat you are having the problem.

[John]

Happy New Year....

I just downloaded 12/30/10 through 1/1/11 without any problems.

For anyone that didn't read about the new HTR File Rat you can read about it here:

http://homebased2.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10751

You can download it here:

http://homebased2.com/km/dnl/FileRatSetup.exe

You can download the docs here:

http://homebased2.com/km/pdf/FileRat2011&HTRFileUtility.pdf

The most recent version is 2011.01 which shows at the bottom of the HTR File Rat.

John

[brianfeldman]

I got some help it is fixed. Thank You.

[EE26]

I seem to have a working HTR archive,my old files are burned to DVD and I should have a rolling 365 day database.
Thanks for all advice/help.

[km]

A few people are reporting old versions of HTR software not working with Jan 1 2011 files.

If you have a version of HTR software (HTR2, MaxVel, Robot2) prior to 2010 or a custom program that is old, it will NOT take files starting today, Jan 1 2011.

This is done on purpose to make sure everyone gets the latest accurate data. The 2011 output would have many differences from old versions. I don't want anyone using outdated material that doesn't match the current. PLEASE UPGRADE

[Val]

Rick
I usually move all HTRDATA files at end of year into folder for that past year. Just want to be clear - I'm getting slower in my old age!

So - if I check "Archive" box on John's new File Rat, I have no more HTR file housekeeping to segregate data by year? Done automatically. Have I got it?

Thanks - sorry for the density on my side.
Val

[Rick]

Val,

You got that right.

John has pretty much removed any reason for HTR members to have to learn anything about files management or files manipulation. :)

It is getting too easy.