Using Arduino IDE 1.8.12.
Dell Tower PC running Windows 10.
Yesterday all was well, but today the IDE will not open any previous sketch files. Now I fear the 1,000-line sketch I'm working on will also fail to open if I close it. This is a loss of tons of previous work. Actually, I saved the current 1,000 line sketch in 'NOTEPAD' just in case.
Should I update my IDE to the latest version? Please advise how to do this.
Please provide a detailed description of what you mean by "will not open". If you're getting any warning or error messages, including in the black console pane at the bottom of the Arduino IDE window, please post the full and exact text here.
In Windows 10, If I click on ANY ino file that did open, this is what happens now.
An Arduino underlined icon appears at the bottom of my task-bar.
If I hover over the icon, a small popup appears showing the correct file name.
But when I click on the icon, nothing happens at all .... nothing. Normally when I click on the icon the file opens together with the Arduino IDE.
File explorer shows my ino files, but they will not open ... only the above appears. The large mostly working file I was working on yesterday will no longer open anymore as well.
I have been using the same IDE reliably for months that gave me no trouble until today.
If the icon stays in the taskbar, the following might be the case.
If you had a second monitor and the last time the IDE was open in the second monitor, the IDE opens on the second monitor, even if it's not there anymore.