Recover a deleted songbook

10/2/2016

This topic describes how to recover deleted songbooks, or songbooks that are hidden.
Most of the time, all your songs are there, simply they are not displayed.
Let's see how to show them again, in a few clicks.

Solution 1 - The songbook is excluded from the search, and hidden

One reason why you don't see your songbook can simply be because it is marked as "hidden".
Make sure that the option “Hide songbooks excluded from the search” is selected.
Right-click on the list of songbooks and select “Show songbooks excluded from the search”:

Related topic How to exclude songbooks from the search

Solution 2 - The songbooks are there, but all/most songs are gone

The reason is probably that your songbook search mode is set to the following option:

Songs with chords

Simply select the "Title and lyrics" search option, and all your songs will be instantly there again.

Related topics

Solution 3 - Recover the deleted songbook

VideoPsalm stores songbooks into individual files.
Even after you delete a songbook via the "Delete" button in VideoPsalm, you can get it back easily.

To delete a songbook, select it, then press the "Delete songbook" button and confirm with "OK":

Let's say that you deleted a songbook, for example your “Big Song Collection”:

When you delete a songbook, VideoPsalm renames it with a .ignore file extension.
The next time when you start VideoPsalm, this songbook will not be loaded.

To get a deleted songbook back:

1. Open the VideoPsalm options and navigate to the folder where VideoPsalm stores its documents:

The usual location is:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\VideoPsalm

VideoPsalm stores the songbooks in the "Songbooks" sub-folder:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\VideoPsalm\Songbooks

If your songbook was called "Big Song Collection.vpc", after deletion it will be called "Big Song Collection.vpc.ignore".

2. Rename the songbook file by removing the ".ignore" file extension.
If you don't see file extensions, tell the Windows File Explorer to display them.
By default, Windows hides the file extensions.
To complete the recover process, tell Windows to show the file extensions, via the Windows File Explorer options:

3. Restart VideoPsalm and see that your songbook is back.

Solution 4 - Get the previous version of your songbook

When you save a songbook, VideoPsalm puts aside the previous version of the songbook.
You will find it aside the songbook, with an extension .bak

If a problem happenend while saving a songbook, you may be able to recover your songs from the backup version.

To load the backup of the songbook instead of the songbook (the current/broken version) itself:

1. Rename the songbook extension .vpc to .vpc.ori
(more precisely: add a .ori file extension)
That way, VideoPsalm won't load this songbook the next time it starts.

2. Rename the songbook .vpc.bak to .vpc or (.json.bak to .json), by removing the .bak extension.
That way, VideoPsalm will load the songbook backup the next time it starts.

Note To recover the backup of a songbook, don't simply rename its file name.
It is important to change its file extension to something different than the regular exensions.
Regular songbooks have a file extension of .vpc or .json.

For example
Let's say that you have a songbook from which you want to recover the backup.
The songbook is called Songs.vpc:
Songs.vpc <-------------- CURRENT songbook.

1. Rename it to (change the file extension, more precisely: add a .ori file extension):
Songs.vpc.ori <-------------- CORRECT: Change the file extension.

Songs ori.vpc <-------------- INCORRECT: Do not simply rename the name of the file.

Solution 5 - The songbook is nowhere to be found

Other places to look for your lost songbooks are :

Look into the Windows Recycle Bin
Somebody may have inadvertently moved your songbook into the Windows Recycle bin.
This is easy to recover.

Find a misplaced songbook/file
Somebody may have unknowingly moved your songbook into another folder.

Use the Windows File Explorer and search for files with the .vpc file extension.
Look also for files with the .json extension.

Get it from a VideoPsalm backup
Someone in your team may posess a VideoPsalm backup done in the short past.
Get the songbook back from the backup.
The backup is a zip file, from where you can extract a single songbook.
Or you can make a full restore.

Related topic How to backup VideoPsalms' data

From your past agenda files
Last, but not least, your agenda files may contain a whole bunch of your songs.
To recover the lost songs, reopen your past agenda files.
VideoPsalm will rebuild your missing songbook, at least the songs from it contained in the agendas.

Related topic Open an agenda file (YouTube)

For more specific help, please contact us via the contact form.

13 Comments

Ron

11/19/2016 07:07:12 pm

When I open video psalm one day, one of the songbooks doesn't show anymore. I tried your tutorial above, but it seems that the songbook still in the computer. It's .json file. How can I make it appear again? Did I click something that probably made it disappear?
Thank you for your help.

VideoPsalm link

11/20/2016 12:15:04 am

Hi Ron,

To make you sonbook visible again, try the following:

1. Right-click on the songbook panel.

2. Select "Show songbooks excluded from the search".

Your missing songbook should now show in the list, greyed-out.

3. To enable VideoPsalm to search songs into it, right-click on the songbook, and select "Include the songbook in the search".

Now the songbook is not greyed-out anymore.

4. Save your changes.

Does it work for you?
If not, please send me your songbook file (.json or .vpc) in an email attachment, and I will investigate further.

5/15/2017 08:23:36 am

Hi, I recently got a new computer and before checking how to properly move the songbooks and other files I moved all of those files onto an external hard drive and and then put them onto my new computer. Now my songbook files that I want to use is a .json and a .json.ignore file and after downloading the software onto my new computer and trying to follow the above instructions, when right clicking I only have the option to "copy a songbook summary to the Clipboard"

Is there a way to be able to view these files again after not following the proper PC tranfer steps or have a lost them for good?
Thank you for the help!

VideoPsalm link

5/17/2017 04:35:11 am

Hi LC,

Thank you for your message.
Your songbooks can of course be read by the other PC.

Basically, put their file in the following folder:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\VideoPsalm\SongBooks

Does it work for you?
If not, please send me a screenshot of the problem.

The following article describes your task more in details:
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/how-to-backup-videopsalms-data-or-start-it-from-a-usb-stick-portable-videopsalm

Please note that this forums are not monitored thoroughly.
To be able to send images and formatted text, please use our email at gmail directly.

Praise

6/17/2017 12:08:26 am

Hi. One of my song book doesnt show any more when I open Videopsalm. It is not hidden either. I tried the above mentioned options also. But nothing worked. But it is showing in the song book folder as English Song Book.json .

VideoPsalm link

6/17/2017 02:28:23 pm

Hi Praise,
Please send me your songbook file in an email attachment at gmail, so that I can investigate.

Daniela

10/11/2018 12:38:23 am

Hi VideoPsalm, one of our songbook just vanished, I have tried all of the above and beyond.
Now, the songbook is back, the problem is that when I open the songbook it says there is only one song, when I click on the song is all the songs of that specific songbook on one (weird) filed, it's kind of coded.
This is a small segment of what is showing me.
Text:"Déjanos ver
el mover de tu presencia
revélanos más y más de tu grandeza."}),Style:{Background:{Video:"Blue Green Screen Gradient Background Animation Stock Video 2.wmv"}},

How do I return them into being each song individually instead of one mashup weird song?
Thank you and God bless, this program has been great help for or church :)

VideoPsalm link

10/11/2018 01:30:26 am

Hi Daniela,
Please send me your songbook (the corresponding .json file) as a file attachment to an email at my gmail account VideoPsalm, so that I can investigate.

Ian

9/6/2020 05:03:10 am

Hi. I had this problem. I think it was caused by having 2 songbooks with the same name (one was a vpc file, the other a json file). I had created my own songbook and then imported one via the import option.

Both were visible in videopsalm.

On closing videopsalm and then reopening later, one of the songbooks had gone. Looking in the files, the main file had also gone (it happened with each songbook).

Fortunately there is a way to get them back. if you create a copy of the file that is called [your songbook].json.bak or [your songbook].vpc.bak and then rename it without the .bak, miraculously, it reappears!

Just make sure you change the name of one of them otherwise it will happen again (it did to me).

John Regan

5/14/2020 09:07:44 am

I would like to be able to place a colored rectangle behind the song text to create contrast with a moving or still background. it does not appear to be possible in VideoPsalm. please advise... Thank you!

VideoPsalm link

7/27/2020 11:53:51 pm

Hi John,

Thank you for requesting a colored rectangle behind the song text.
This is not possible at the moment.
This feature is in the list of things to do, and your request adds weight to it.

At the moment, it is possible to set outline and shadow colors:
https://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/set-text-fill-outline-and-shadow-colors

Manuel P Rogers

4/6/2022 05:38:37 pm

I opened our VideoPsalm at church and all of our songs are gone. We turn off the computer after every service because of power surges from storms. How do I find the songs? Thanks

VideoPsalm link

7/19/2022 09:21:36 am

Hi Manuel,
Please contact me by email at [email protected] and send me the content fo your following folder:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\VideoPsalm\SongBooks

The following article describes 4 ways to get your songbooks back:
https://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/recover-a-deleted-songbook

VideoPsalm