[GLLUG] Reading/converting unknown database file

[Henrik Morsing]

Good afternoon,

I have used Collectorz software for cataloguing, but they are moving away from their totally awesome thick client to a crappy web-based thing, so I started writing my own replacement in Python.

Problem is that populating the Collectorz catalogue has taken years, so I was hoping I could read or convert its database file, however, it appears to be in a totally unknown format.

Both Google and ChatGPT suggests the same, but it surprises me a bit as it is just a tiny company. I think they are now twenty people, but the software was started by just two of them. Would they really have invented their own database format? They could have just encrypted it, if they didn't want it read.

Here's the top of it:

$ hexdump -C Backup_20240915.muc | head -n 20
00000000  06 0e 43 6f 6c 6c 65 63  74 6f 72 7a 2e 63 6f 6d  |..Collectorz.com|
00000010  06 05 4d 75 73 69 63 03  4a 01 03 5e 08 02 01 04  |..Music.J..^....|
00000020  a3 86 01 00 02 26 7b 00  35 00 37 00 44 00 45 00  |.....&{.5.7.D.E.|
00000030  45 00 34 00 41 00 34 00  2d 00 31 00 38 00 41 00  |E.4.A.4.-.1.8.A.|
00000040  30 00 2d 00 34 00 36 00  45 00 32 00 2d 00 42 00  |0.-.4.6.E.2.-.B.|
00000050  34 00 31 00 46 00 2d 00  34 00 45 00 30 00 41 00  |4.1.F.-.4.E.0.A.|
00000060  30 00 30 00 46 00 39 00  34 00 42 00 32 00 34 00  |0.0.F.9.4.B.2.4.|
00000070  7d 00 03 6f 02 04 3c 6e  05 00 02 03 01 00 01 02  |}..o..<n........|
00000080  00 02 00 02 0c 64 00 61  00 74 00 61 00 62 00 61  |.....d.a.t.a.b.a|
00000090  00 73 00 65 00 2e 00 6d  00 75 00 63 00 02 08 43  |.s.e...m.u.c...C|
000000a0  00 4c 00 5a 00 2d 00 30  00 30 00 30 00 30 00 00  |.L.Z.-.0.0.0.0..|
000000b0  02 00 01 00 01 00 01 03  e8 00 02 00 02 00 02 00  |................|

database.muc in the dump is just the filename before I backed it up, and CLZ is the name of the software. 

Any ideas on how to read this, if at all possible?

Regards,
Henrik Morsing
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