Genealogy Chat

Now that GR Technical have cleared the recent Download problem I have called out a file.

I am using Windows 10.

I usually open the .ged with Notepad to confirm the header lines prior to uploading into other software, but thought that I would try this other program that shows when I click 'open with'. It is listing 273 compatibility issues. Some are warnings and others are errors - the latter have a red cross.

Many are the same wording e.g
Warning - "The line value has trailing white space characters"
Error - "The code point [A0] at position nnnnnnn cannot be mapped to a character"
(nnnnnnn is a different number for each Error).

Does anyone use this Validator program?

Never heard of it tbh

I'd never heard of it either, until now.

Have you tried contacting them for advice?
https://chronoplexsoftware.com/gedcomvalidator/help/index.htm

You'll get better help from them than from us!


As far as I understand it, trailing whitespace is just unnecessary spaces between words in a sentence, where a new line has been started between those words, and isn't a problem .
The warning is just in case you want to correct that, which I expect you can do after the file has been downloaded.

However, the "error" may be a programming problem, in which case you won't be able to do it yourself.
Every character in every language in the world is assigned a unique number called a code point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode

So it looks like either some unidentifiable character (if such a thing exists) has been entered which doesn't match up with any code point, or else the programme has entered a code point wrongly.

I've no idea if it would have any adverse effect on the downloading of your GEDCOM.

I have used the GEDCOM Validator and agree with ArgyllGran that the trailing spaces thing is not a problem. However the errors may well prevent the GEDCOM from loading into another program.

I had a problem where the Ancestry produced GEDCOM of my tree contained a couple of errors and it would not import into my GR tree. However a GEDCOM produced by the synced Family Tree Maker version of the same tree did not contain an error.

The error indication contained text that should not have been in that tree. In the end I concluded that it was due to something not being properly cleared out at some stage.

I find FTAnalyzer a much more useful facility,

Folks, Thanks for the replies.

I decided to try uploading without looking into any of lines that had the warning/error message.
ANC - No problems stated.
FMP - No problems stated.
PAF5 (on my pc) - the usual two error notes which do not affect the upload.

When I have some spare time I will review the indicated lines and clean up my GR Tree.