Dealing With Some Common Invalid Signature Errors

Upon opening InfoWorks ICM or InfoNet (now InfoAsset Manager) or a master database within one of these software platforms, you may encounter an Invalid Signature error preventing you from working in your database.

If the error reads something like:

INVALID SIGNATURE followed by the path to your database and to a file called “Rootobjects.dat” or “RootPrefs.dat”

the reason you are getting this is because there has been some kind of network interruption and it has corrupted the file. This is also the result of keeping a standalone database on a network drive which is unsupported by Innovyze. We have another article that discusses why and how to convert to a Workgroup database to prevent these problems in the future (login required).  

If you receive the error that references the RootObjects.dat file:

This dat file contains the tree view information (basically the parent objects that give the path to the data). If you see this, the best solution is to restore your database to a backup and also that you move on to using a Workgroup database. If you can’t restore, please contact support@innovyze.com.

If you receive the error that references the RootPrefs.dat file:

This dat file contains all the database preferences (flags, etc).  There is nothing we can do to recover this.  You will need to either:

1. Restore the RootPrefs.dat file (not the entire database) from a backup or
2. Delete the RootPrefs.dat file completely, which will then be recreated by the software when you next open it.

If you choose to delete it, you will lose all the preferences that you have created, but will be able to access the database.

Again, it is recommended that you move to a Workgroup database to negate problems like this happening in the future.