Laramonet wrote on 02/08/24 at 21:45:23:

ChessBase is ubiquitous, and I have been using it since version 6, but their recent efforts have turned me off. I tried ChessBase 14 for a while and didn't like it; later versions seem to be going in a similarly depressing direction. Fortunately you don't need the latest and greatest.

• For accessing DVD content I use ChessBase Reader on Windows. Not a pleasant experience, but luckily I don't have to do it often.
• For converting from CBH to PGN I use ChessBase 10 -- the last version that doesn't require online activation to use the local database features. It runs okay on Linux using Wine, after installing the ChessBase service pack c10_sp6.exe.
• For their up-to-date database (database.chessbase.com) I pay for a ChessBase Premium account. This also gives me access to some useful videos, as well as access to some other cloudy services which are of no interest whatsoever. Your mileage may vary.

Fortunately there are alternatives. For your use case I can recommend Scid. You may have to do some work to learn where all the features are hiding, but you will only have to do that learning once. It certainly won't lose your databases.

• https://scid.sourceforge.net/
• http://www.betterchesstraining.com/2016/04/intro-to-scid.html
• Quote:
  
  Matthew Sadler wrote
  ... So far, as you can maybe tell from my enthusiasm, I've had a great time using Scid. It is extremely fast (the searches are going like lightning despite the fact that the PC I'm using now is much inferior to my main PC) and the features are great. For example, you can easily build up a repertoire file specifying which lines you do play and which lines you are not interested in and then run this file against your database. ... 
  -- Sadler on Books, New in Chess (2003 #7, pg.90-91)

Thanks for mentioning this on the forum, because if it's a wider issue then that's the way to find out.

Laramonet wrote on 01/23/24 at 19:30:17:

Highlighted for the benefit of readers who don't know about the criticality of backups (and cloud storage is not a backup). Good job you had one to restore from. 

I agree with Paddy's advice, you can unregister the software (although not in the case that your hard-drive has died first), that reduces their installed count by one. I have done it with both Fritz and ChessBase. Also you shouldn't need to download more than once. You can make a backup of the downloaded installer and just use that copy for any reinstall. Only if you lose that backup (or travel so don't have access to it) would you need to download again.

Question: Are you using the new-in-ChessBase-17 .2CBH file format, or the older .CBH format? You can try using the other format to see if it works better.

I don't like ChessBase very much, for a bunch of little reasons, but I wouldn't be too harsh on them here. They are in a tough spot: Unless they are sitting in front of your computer when the issue happens, there is not much chance they could diagnose the problem. It could be ChessBase17, Windows (e.g. file system drivers), networking, your hardware, or a combination of those.

In September my hard-drive died and I replaced it with a solid state version. Improved speed by needed to buy a new ChessBase as the installation limit had been reached from the disks. Purchased my 125 Euro software, and to re-enter some games I'd lost but not too bad. Away playing in Albania and two issues: one a game in my repertoire database would not update and then froze. It would say ChessBase error has occurred and refuse to allow editing. After some time it would come back, not helpful when preparing for the game. Next after entering a game in My Games database, all games in the list would disappear, tournaments and opponents remained. I had to reload a back-up copy. Emails and even an anguished and expensive telephone call to Germany returned precisely nothing. The repertoire non-edit issue happened again in November, then bliss over Christmas. Trying to enter my first game of the recent tournament and all my games disappeared again, tournaments and opponents again remaining. I summarised all occurrences, sent copies of previous email correspondence and screenshots to ChessBase. All I got back was advice to reload and / or reload the software. I returned an angry response saying I had already used 2 of 5 downloads to get where I am and that having paid the top price for the premier chess database software, this was not what I called customer service. Unfortunately, I have lost patience and reloaded my back-up database but this is hardly a good advert. Anybody else had similar problems ?