Corruption occurs when your data has become damaged. This normally happens because of environmental influences outside of the software itself. For example, computer crashes, power failure, interference from other software or hardware or network problems. To check for corruption, run the Check Data option.
NOTE: If you need to close the software through Task Manager, check your data when you open the software again.
How does this affect my data?
Since corruption indicates damaged or even missing information, you must resolve it as quickly as possible. If you restore a backup taken before the corruption occurring, you must re-enter all the transactions you processed since you took it.
Identify and minimise the risk of corruption
You can minimise data corruption and identify any issues quickly with a few steps. Click each option to find out more.
▼ Check your data
The Check Data routine identifies corruption when it returns a list of errors. Running this routine regularly is a vital step in ensuring the integrity of your data.
To check your data:
- Select File.
- Click Maintenance.
- Select Check Data.
Other indications of data corruption include:
- Does the software crash or freeze?
- When selecting drop-down lists, are the lists blank or do they freeze?
- Do any of the software windows show random characters?
- Are transactions or records missing from your data?
If you have errors, you need to resolve this immediately. Refer to the article A - Z index of Check Data errors, warning and comments.
If you can't run a check data or check data freezes, refer to article Sage 50 Accounts hangs or crashes during Check Data.
With Sage 50 Accounts v26 and above, you can automate your backups, in v28 and above you can automate Check Data too.
Alternatively, you can take a manual backup.
If you have errors in your data, consider restoring a backup. This involves less downtime than sending your data to Sage for repair. For example, if you back up daily, you can restore to the previous day and you would only lose one day's data.
If you use third-party software with your program, contact the provider to confirm it’s fully compatible and tested with your version of Sage Accounts. If it is, we recommend that you take a backup and check your data before posting from your third-party software. Then check your data again after posting to make sure that this hasn't caused errors.
Regularly check and install any necessary updates. Click Help and then select Check for updates, then follow the instructions.
If you use a network version of Sage Accounts, or you use Remote Data Access, complete this on each computer that has Sage Accounts installed. It's important that each computer running Sage Accounts has the same version of the software installed. Check your version number in Help, then About.
To see a list of all version numbers and updates required, visit www.sage.co.uk/au.
▼ Check your system specifications
If your computer doesn't meet the recommended requirements for your Sage software, this can cause data corruption. To check the recommended specifications, refer to our system requirements article.
Also ensure that no other software interferes with your Sage software. For example, your antivirus software can check your Sage data files and can affect the performance. For more information about how to avoid conflicts with your antivirus software.
Fixing corruption
If your data has corruption you must stop processing and follow the steps below. Click each step to find out more.
▼ Backup
Before you restore an error-free backup or attempt to fix corruption, back up the data in its current state.
▼ Restore a previous error free backup
▼ Fix errors, warnings and comments
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