HW 4-series: all "extract" operations are giving me a bad/corrupted file. Advice?

Background: I'm a homeowner that uses HW Illuminations software (v1.4902) pretty regularly to "tune-up" my programming. (eg. each year I have a floor outlet that I switch to "stay on always" for the xmas tree... and it's that time of year now...) I have a few saved HDF files ... but I'm never certain they are the LAST/MOST UP-TO-DATE version on the processor. So .. my normal workflow when making a change is (a) connect to processor, (b) download/extract the current db into a new HDF ... (c) Make changes! then (d) upload.

Problem: I'd like to make some changes, but I've failed repeatedly to EXTRACT a non-corrupt version of the database. Here's what happens:
- I use terminal to extract and save to a file... then try to OPEN that saved file.. and HW Illuminations gives an error message saying "3011- the Microsoft Jet database engine couldn't find the object 'Databases'." I've tried this on multiple PCs, including Win10 and Win11. Opening the resulting HDF gives the same error every time (2 win11 and 2 win10 PCs). One notable fact: when I extract, on Windows 11 I'm getting both an HDF file *and* an LDB file of the same name. This didn't used to happen -- and this has made me wonder whether it was a software-issue on the newer PC I was using. When I extract on Win10, I get only the HDF file.

- Further info on the EXTRACT file -- I've run MDB Plus and that software fails to open the newly-extracted DB, while it has no problem opening up the earlier HDF files I have.

SO .. I have two different resolution paths in mind

1) RESET THE PROCESSOR AND TRY TO GET IT TO EXTRACT SUCCESSFULLY. i'm pretty sure I have NOT done a "full power cycle"... I've unplugged the AC adapter that's connected, but this doesn't seem to cut the power. (I think there are two blue power wires firmly attached.. I haven't yanked those off.) Questions: Does anyone have advice on how to actualy physically "reset/reboot" the processor? (I saw a thread here about holding down "init" but haven't found concrete guidance th3re.) does this even seem like a good idea? :)

2) JUST UPLOAD A SAVED HDF FILE ... and see if that works and gets me back to a good state. I've hesitated on this just because I don't know whether I will lose some existing changes.

Help/advice? (photos of the processor attached)

THANK YOU!

If you have a program file and you are the only one making changes, why are you extracting all the time??? It is not necessary. Proper versioning practices would be every time you make a change to save the fie with a new date or version number. That way when you connect in terminal all you need to do if youre unsure whats running on the system is to use the command GETDATES and it will show you the file thats currently loaded to the processor.

Thanks for the help and advice! I had no awareness of the GETDATES command -- that was a key piece of info and it showed me that one of my locally-stored files, in fact, is the latest version that had been uploaded to the processor. Years ago the tech who showed me how to get started with this setup suggested that doing a download would be the reliable way to make sure the project I worked with was the latest ... but your technique is certainly better.

I was able to work with my locally saved version of the same file... and upload. So I'm off and running again.

I haven't tried downloading again -- though at this point I can't see a NEED to do that anymore. I'm hoping the download failure wasn't an indication of something more serious going wrong. LmK if you have additional thoughts/advice on this.. and thank you again!

Yes extracting from these older systems seems to get more risky the older the processor is. I would also be prepared for when this processor fails- alot of them are starting to have internal hardware failures and you will be out of luck with no lighting. Unless you are prepared to spend the money to upgrade to QS, I would start looking for a backup processor just in case. Theres plenty of threads here about these older processors.