Why might FM2019 64-bit interpret some Chapter files in a book as earlier FM-versioned files?

[Ran_techwriter]

Hi, all - I'm creating a 14-chapter FM2019 book, and for some reason, FM is misinterpreting several Chapter files as being created using earlier versions of FM (e.g, FM 11, FM 2017). This is the first time I've seen this issue, and I can't figure out why it's happening - I have multiple versions of FM installed on my desktop PC, but they weren't running, and no Chapter files were downgrade-saved as earlier FM versions. It's possible that a lengthy directory name where the files are saved might be problematic, but we've never had an issue like this occur since we installed FM2019 at my company. Any guesses would be greatly appreciated. Thank You! 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Did you get the message about upgrading them from an earlier version? Were they saved after that before attempting to "use" them in FM2019?

[Ran_techwriter]

No message at all - the Chapter files simply appear in the book file window with different colored icons (e.g,, from what look like FM 11, FM 2017, etc.). The FM 2019 64-bit software is upgraded to the latest version, btw.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You may have suppressed the message that pops when the upgrade takes place - I tend to leave that on so that I know it's upgraded it to a new version.

[Ran_techwriter]

No - we never suppress upgrade messages. Multiple versions of FM are used at my company, so we're always aware of which version of FM a file is created in. 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

How is it getting older versions of FM tangled up in your converted FM2019 files? What are you seeing happen?

[Ran_techwriter]

That seems to be the $64,000 Question: How is FM2019 misinterpreting FM2019-created chapter files as earlier-versioned FM files? It's never occurred before. The only thing we are seeing is that several of the FM2019 chapter files are suddenly displayed in the book file window with earlier FM version colored icons.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

All I can think of is that maybe your Windows File Associations have gotten mixed up - do you have any source control at play?

[Ran_techwriter]

Not that I'm aware of, but thank you for the tip - I'll forward that on to our IT staff for analysis, but we aren't seeing any issues with other files. 

[Ran_techwriter · Accepted solution]

Resolved - worked with Adobe Support to reset FM2019 User Preferences to default state, then relaunched the book (chapter files restored to default appearance as expected). Thank You to everyone for your sugggestions! 

[Bob_Niland]

You can use notepad to examine the first bytes of a .fm binary file, and it might provide some clues:
<MakerFile 7.0H>
<MakerFile 15.0>

[Ran_techwriter]

Thank you for the tip - every file I looked at displays <MakerFile 15.0>. I'm guessing there may be a conflict having multiple FM versions installed on the same desktop PC.  

[frameexpert]

I haven't read the entire thread very carefully, but generated FrameMaker files (TOC, IX, etc.) have different color icons in the book window.

[Ran_techwriter]

Yes, we understand that icons for Generated files appear differently than Chapter files.