Ratslinger: no dispute: but I explained; each and every backup of that file is now an ODT instead of an ODB. I can indeed (right) click on a file and perform many things; but Open As ODB is NOT one of the choices. That is what is so puzzling about this. Before I went to save a copy of the file in question it had an ODB suffix, after I made the mistake which Easy Trieve identified, ALL instances, even to the backup files from 45 days ago now show an ODT suffix. It would seem reasonable that the f
If I can figure out how to post the file I will. I do not wish to give up; any and all help and suggestion is welcome. Thank you for your help; I mean it.JG
Sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense for every extension to change as such. I also believed based on question & remarks you had a file with .odb extension. One more thought - have you tried renaming the file extension from .odt to .odb and then try opening that? Or have you actually looked at the archive of the file?
Yeah. I want to see you get your file back.
OK. Did some more testing on Mint 18 with embedded DB. First, many tries with Save as on form & did not in any way do anything to the original .odb file. Second, changing the extension to .odt (from .odb) still opened the file in Base. Now, one of you comments states all these files now open in Writer with the look of the form. My confusion here is “What happened to the .odb?” since a “Save As” will not overwrite the original file.
Strange, but true. However! I also saved the work on another segment of the hard drive and THAT copy is still an ODB, and opens, and is useful (though not up to date), am experimenting carefully with how to copy it w/out destroying it. I must admit, this is a bit spooky. Thanks for your encouragement, I will write back shortly.
When you say “my database it has transformed itself into a text file”, what do you actually mean? What actually happens when you try to open your problem .odb file? For example, do you get a pop-up dialog asking you to select a FILTER. Are you saying that the Mac FILE EXTENSION ‘magically’ changes from .odb to .odt? One other question - have you updated your JAVA frameworks on your Mac prior to the problem appearing - either the run-time environment (JRE) or development kit (JDK) ?
@frofa From what I can piece together, he has been doing a Save as while still on a Form thinking it was saving a copy of the .odb as a backup and not paying attention to the extension saved. Then transferred all “backups” & another “copy” to a new disk and from what I can tell, not copying the current .odb file (just the incorrectly saved copy).
I am healed. Thanks to R/S and E/T. To Easy Trieve: after opening and using the Form to enter data, the menu offers a Save and a Close File. I have always done just that: save and close. Once the form is closed there is no more option to save! Thus was I lulled into using the “save copy as” selection from the Form menu. That is what caused this panic. Ratslinger; among other things I now am curious as to whether my (remote) hard drive might be acting up, or the Mac backup function; for what I cl
aimed is true: every single backup which has the file should read ODB, but they don’t: they are ALL ODT files, caused by my error. Something is not right about that. Could this be a case of Computer Gremlins? I have now saved copies of this and it’s brother (different camera) file in three different places and two different drives. Thank you both and others for helping. Can I award two stars? JG
Well, whatever the case, make sure future copies are saved properly. It’s not hardware. I believe you have been improperly saving the form (as mentioned by @EasyTrieve) and not the actual .odb file. Also, when transferring data to a new piece of hardware, test it before getting rid of the old.
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To Frofra and R/S. I had been saving correctly, but did not realize it; this is what I tried to explain to Trieve. While in the Form the menu selections are different than when in the D/B window (from which you select a form, a report, or a table). When in the Form there is no option to save the DB, only a save, which apparently does so, lucky for me. When I perceived the need to create additional backups of the file I selected Save Copy As from the form menu. This creates a text file overlay as
Easy Trieve explained. The rest is too much for me to explain, and why I now suspect my hard drive may be playing tricks. I can promise you that the act of inadvertently saving the form caused the only copy of the ODB which I kept in the Documents directory to vanish; my guess is that the ODT file overwrote it for some reason. Same name? Same date stamp? I wish I knew. Thanks to R/S’s coaching I found a copy I had placed some time ago on a separate drive which had not been so altered, and I have
Tip for JG: The way I make backup copies of my .odb files (in Mac OS) is just to select the ‘original’ file .odb icon in the Mac Finder and do a DUPLICATE (command-D). I then change the word COPY in the new filename to the DATE the copy was made such as 2017-03-24. NOTE: The SIZE of the file should more-or-less the same has your ‘original’. (If it isn’t, something is probably wrong.) The technique also works (with minor modifications) to entire SPLIT database folders.
I’m pretty sure LO associates all the files it supports so that LO itself will determine the appropriate path to handle the file on open, instead of associating specific files with specific LO binary.
In any case, OS X (maybe pre-X too ?), Linux and BSD all have file command, run it on the file in question, it’ll tell what it is. You can even get a native one for Window$, I use it sometimes.
(Looks like you pretty much already figured this out, but for others who pass this way.)
What causes this:
Base forms, are actually overlays inside Writer pages. Hence if while in a Form you Save Copy As by default the save will be created as an *.odt. That’s where the trouble begins.
To properly save a copy of the database you need to either close the form, or switch to the outer window, i.e. the window that has a “- LibreOffice Base” suffix at the top of the windows, (not the window with the “- LibreOffice Base Form” prefix).
I fell in this trap early on and had to rebuild to recover. 
BTW, Recent files is no good if the file to open isn’t there to open (like if you moved the file or renamed it). I have to clear this list from time to time after I rename or move files.
(I pesonally don’t know how to recover from this, except to go back to your most recent .odb file. There really should be some sort of warning built in someday.)
This most closely matches my situation: the file is there: it is not useable. If there is, indeed no way to recover from this I agree that there should be some indication for the novice user such as me that I am about to throw away many, many hours of work. There are NO surviving ODB files which open as such. My backup files go all the way to when I first successfully created the database: each and every one opens as an ODT “read only” file, which looks just like my DB “form”, awaiting entries,
So I’m not sure exactly what happened to you. Let’s break this into two, data and program: A1) Do you know which database you are using? Choices: Embedded or not embedded? If not embedded then what? If you don’t know, then it is most likely Embedded. A2) Can you click Menu> View Data Sources? Is your data shown there? Can you copy it out to Calc? B) To not loose changes to your forms and other design, you re-create it manually with the help of View Toolbar Form Design?
One other question. You say has been turned into a text file. But this exactly what do you mean. Do you mean it has extension .txt and you can open it with a simple text editor, like vi, Notepad, or the like? What filename extension is your best, most current file? Does it open with LibreOffice Writer? And if so can you please provide a screen shot?