You are here

I'm receiving a "Binary stream '0'" error on opening '.catc' file.

Hello,

Thank you for the simple application.

While working and the application was loaded in memory, my PC hanged and I had to hard shutdown my laptop through the power button. Once back, I had some applications not to run at all, one of which was "Cash and the City", I've uninstalled it and then re-installed the current version. Now I have two files whenever I try to open them I get the below error and I cannot open them at all and it is important to have them back opened or at least the last data extracted.

Note: I had custom income and expense item descriptions maintained ... not sure if that might be part of the problem and that the program is searching for them and can't since I've done a new installation

---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
Cannot open the file 'C:\Users\haddadmu\Documents\Cash And The City\Zakat Ramadan 2014.catc'.
Binary stream '0' does not contain a valid BinaryHeader. Possible causes are invalid stream or object version change between serialization and deserialization.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

Your help is much appreciated and Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Soft and the City's picture

Hi,
Can you remember what version of Cash and the City did you use before reinstalling it?
Current version is 1.4.5. Which one did you use?

Hi,

I was using version 1.4.4.2 and first after installation of 1.4.5 I had an issue about the user config file and it couldn't create the 1.4.5 folder so I copied the config from 1.4.3 to the 1.4.4.2 folder and then the app was able to load and create the folder for 1.4.5 with config. C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Soft_And_The_City\CashAndTheCity.exe_Url_kpigyn3w1rkpxgqkndohw2ioggdx3ytm

unfortunately I didn't take backups for the '.catc' files before having this error nor even the replaced 1.4.4.2 user config file, however I currently have the .CATC files that are not opening and throwing this error.

Hope you can help.

Soft and the City's picture

Hi,
Here is the version 1.4.4: http://cashandthecity.com/download/CashAndTheCity_1.4.4.1_setup.exe
Try to uninstall current version and install this one.
Then try to open your .catc file (through menu Open, and don't touch config files).
And say if something changed.

Vadim.

Hi Vadim,

I tried that but didn't work. The version you sent is for 1.4.4.1, could you send me the link for the 1.4.4.2 version?.

May I ask you where are the custom expense and income items are saved or cached? I had a look and they are not in the user config. I think it might be the one causing the issues, though not 100% sure.

And are there any other means of extracting the items and numbers recorded in these files, any technique of reverse engineering them?? I tried editing in notepad but got no data.

Thanks,
Muhammad

Soft and the City's picture

Difference between 1.4.4.1 and 1.4.4.2 is tiny and only in UI, not in .catc file format.
So, I'm afraid it looks like your .catc file is corrupted.
Custom expense and income types are stored inside .catc file, so they cannot influence anything.

The only way I can suggest - send me your .catc file to contact@softandthecity.com and I'll try to repair it (or partially repair) if some uncorrupted data are still there.

Vadim.

Hi Vadim,

I've sent you the CATC files over the mentioned email.

Kindly let me know if you are up to something.

Kind Regards,
Muhammad Haddad

Soft and the City's picture

Hi Muhammad,
I'm very sorry.
Your both files you sent me contain no info, only binary zeros.
Nothing can be restored from them.
Sorry again.

Vadim.

Hi Vadim,

Thanks for the efforts and tying them. Are you saying the files are empty?

Thanks again and my regards,
Muhammad

Soft and the City's picture

not completely empty, but no meaningful data, only zeros
viewhex Zakat Ramadan 2014.png

Soft and the City's picture

and another question: do you have a back up of your catc-file or don't?

Hi Vadim,

Thanks for the efforts and intent to help.

regards,

Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer