A few thoughts on this subject...
More than likely, there is something special about the ONE topic that caused the crash when duplicating. Duplicating definitely works in general, as you've already determined. So proclaiming that everything to do with duplicating was broken was IMHO unnecessarily high on drama.
Realm Works is extremely robust when it comes to ensuring nobody loses their data. The issue centered on a single topic. There was no need to restore from a backup and clobber all your work. If you had simply avoided the problematic topic and proceeded onward, you would could have avoided losing those two hours of work. Once we found and fixed the issue, that one topic would again be accessible and you'd have everything back the way you wanted it.
Unless you saved a copy of your database that was crashing, it's going to be extremely difficult for us to fix the problem. You sent us the crash report, but the issue is tied to something special about that ONE topic. Without access to that specific topic within your database, we're probably not going to be able to figure out the problem. It will be like finding a needle in a haystack.
So the three take-aways from this for anyone reading should be:
1. Please accurately portray the nature of bugs and the scope of their impact. There's no reason to cause other users unnecessary panic when a bug is limited to a special set of circumstances (e.g. a single topic).
2. There's rarely going to be sufficient reason to restore from an old database. We go to great lengths to ensure Realm Works safeguards everyone's data and doesn't lose/corrupt anything. If something goes wrong within the program, start by avoiding the one "landmine" situation and report the issue. We will almost always be able to preserve your data when we fix the issue.
3. Please save your database when a crash or other serious bug arises and provide it to us with your bug report. There are a myriad combinations of things that users can do with Realm Works. We can't test them all or even think of them all, and there are some which result in problems. If we can't see what the magic combination is that causes a particular problem (by looking at your data), our ability to find and fix the problem will be significantly impaired.
One last point regarding the database...
Realm Works uses the Firebird database engine on the desktop. This database is an extremely powerful, widely used, and well-tested engine. It is designed to manage terabytes of data efficiently. Most users won't have even 100MB of data, which is less than 0.01% of what Firebird is designed to handle. That's like taking a McLaren F1 for a drive around a parking lot filled with speed bumps. Yes, it's overkill for most users, but it scales well for the few users with large databases and lets us ensure your data is always pristine.
So please don't worry about the fact that everything is stored in a single database file. That's what database engines like Firebird are built for. Other users here on the forums with knowledge in this arena will readily attest to this fact.
Thanks for listening.
