Unfortunately, when a lab book is corrupted and you get the message "File format was not recognized", the lab book you are trying to open is gone forever - there's nothing we can do to recover the data in the file.
This issue is likely caused by your computer being overloaded when saving the lab book, and you may have even experienced the labs freezing when you try to save your lab books. Because of this - we have the following recommendations to prevent this unfortunate error from happening in the future.
First - make sure your lab is up to date! To know how to do that check our help article here.
Second - close ALL other programs besides Beyond Labz and perhaps an internet browser. Be sure the browser doesn't have more than 4 tabs open - too many tabs can overload your computer.
- If you are on a Windows machine, simply close each program using the X in the upper right corner.
- If you are on a Mac, you'll want to quit each program you don't need. Either press Command+Q when in the program, or right click on the program in your dock and select "Quit".
Third - now that you only have Beyond Labz open (and perhaps an internet browser) you should be ok to save your lab book. If your program still freezes - please let us know. We recommending the following when saving your lab book:
- Save a few copies, each with a different name. Then immediately OPEN the lab book files you just saved to check if they have been corrupted. Delete any corrupted files and keep the ones that saved properly.
- Export your lab book each time as a PDF to serve as a backup for your data. Simply select Export PDF from the File option of your lab book to do this.
This should help you avoid having the lab book save error in the future and give you some good computer habits as well! As always, if you need an extra hand - please let us know!