[SOLVED] my export file is full of weird characters
 

Hello,

I've had a blog with Atahualpa theme for a few years now and also have two other sites running on Atahualpha, so am a pretty confident user. I've not really changed anything in my settings for a while and also not been upgrading Atahualpa, so have not exported my settings for a while.
I've just started a new test site and wanted to start off with exporting my settings of my main blog mafgirl.com and importing them to the test blog to start customizing.
However, when I go to ATO/ export settings, the file it generates is full of weird characters rather than code, it starts off like this:
and goes on forever just like it. I've attached the file to this thread - uhm, no I haven't, apparently my quota for attachments is full but I'm not able to delete older attachments- never mind, I hope the above quote helps you to get the gist?
When I try to import the weird text file anyway (you just never know ;) ) I get the message: sorry, but doesn't appear to be a valid Atahualpa Settings file.
I tried exporting the settings in Safari (5.0.5), Firefox (4.0.1) and IE (9) . I tried saving them or opening them in notepad, but all with the same results. I then tried my other Atahualpa website and it does the same... They are both running on Atahualpa version: 3.5.1 (Told you I hadn't upgraded for a while... :S ) my new test site exports the settings just fine, but that is a new install of Atahualpa 3.6.7. I even restarted my laptop and tried all the above again, but to no avail..

I am now worried about upgrading either of my two 3.5.1 blogs as I cannot export my settings before I do!
Any ideas on how to fix this? :confused:

The export was in base64 but was changer json about 3.5.3. There is a note about this in one on the release announcements and an file that can be used to upload the old style.

Or you could manually install the latest version side by side 351 switch to it and do the export

Oh thanks Juggledad! I had already installed it side by side, but when activating it, it seemed to have lost some of the settings. I've exported it from the new version and will have a go at figuring out the settings to go 'back to normal'. Thank you!!!

Can I be cheeky and ask you to have a look at a thread I started yesterday? http://forum.bytesforall.com/showthread.php?t=14166 no-one has answered yet and I was just wondering if you could have a look pleassssse??? :)