Several suggestions which concern the backup and troubleshooting of corrupted models include the following:

• Manual Backup. Models, especially complex models, should be backed up when modeling milestones are reached. This enables a valid model to be retrieved in the event of a corrupted file. Corruption may result from hardware failure, delayed write operations, and other reasons beyond control.

• Automatic Backup. Software automatically saves backup copies of a model to the model directory. These files may be recovered by opening the binary backup file, or by importing the backup text file. Backup files are dependent upon the software, and are identified by their extension, listed as follows:
  
  

  Software	Model File Extension	Binary Backup File Extension	Text Backup File Extension
  SAP2000	.sdb	.sbk	.$2k
  CSiBridge	.bdb	.bbk	.$bk
  ETABS	.edb	.ebk	.$et
  SAFE	.fdb	.fbk	.$sf

• When Corrupted. If your model does become corrupted, try to export and then import a text file of the model. Often times, this will resolve the issue.

See Also

• Troubleshooting Checklist

• Recovering corrupted SAP2000 model files article

• Recovering corrupted CSiBridge model files article

• Recovering corrupted ETABS model files article

• Recovering corrupted SAFE model files article