SAVED WORK BEING LOST WHEN PROGRAM CRASHES

[mike m oz]

OSX 10.4 + VW 11.5 crash = lost work

I have had 3 crashes today which have resulted in substantial lost work. On each occassion all of the work done since the file was last opened is lost.

This is despite having autosave on and also manually saving regularly. When the crash occurs all of the work done since the file was last opened is gone in both the original and backup files.

I have got to the stage where I now open and close the file every 10 minutes in order to limit the damage when the crash occurs.

This needs to be fixed - quickly!

[mike m oz]

And yes I have repaired the permissions + carried out other maintenance.

Also reset the VectorWorks preferences.

It may just be a coincidince but I have just noticed that with the last crash the files last modified time was almost exactly the same as that of the 'safety file' I had saved using Save a Copy As... Perhaps there is an issue with this routine. But then this doesn't explain the other two crashes!

[ 05-24-2005, 09:37 AM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[Lynda]

I'm back to working in 11.01 but have had a similar problem with a large file.

After several crashes (probably due to file size), I've found that generic solids have disappeared or, once, been recreated as 'failed solid additions'. These have disappeared from saved files and from the back up files. I save regularly so thought i was going mad!

I had used generic solids to make the file size smaller.

[mike m oz]

Lynda - I share your frustrations.

It's like the saved changes for a session are only being kept in RAM and not saved back to the original file. As a consequence when a crash occurrs all of these saves are lost forever.

I am slowly tearing my hair out! The air has also been slightly (understatement) 'blue' at times.

[Bruce Pittard]

Since this has happened since the minicad days, I have obbsessively had my fingers close to the 'command'+'s' keys, I probably save once every 30 seconds. I agree this needs to be fixed. How about like a database such as filemaker where once an entry is made it is written straight to the file rather than having to manually save ?

[mike m oz]

Bruce you missed the point - even though I was saving regularly through a session none of these saves were actually saved to the file on the hard drive. After each crash the file was exactly as it was when I opened it at the beginning of the work session.

It's as if all of the saves were being kept in RAM and not actually being saved to the file on the hard drive. The only way I can think of to overcome my problem is to open and close the file every so often so that the saves do in fact get written to the file on the hard drive. Not very good for productivity.

[islandmon]

Me too ... me too... although I save every 15min and after any additions to layers, classes, symbols, objects, scripts, etc. I've managed to beat the crashes down by cleansing of fonts, symbols, PIO & toolkit, etc. Every so often I open the file the next day only to discover that there was a regression of some sort. That just happened yesterday when I lost the main sign to the Ford dealership it was still there as a symbol but the placement on the site plan was lost!

Now here's where it may get weird ... I ended the previous session in Viewports and then the next day when the file opened it was still in Viewports with the Menu>Organize> Show &Modify Layers selected as default ( which is a choice I did not make and very rarely use because of the potential for error ).

My sense is that this default is somehow linked to the recursion.

NNA must change this default to show all ... if possible.. or create a special Viewports Layer option.

[Delmer]

Mike, not much help here but,

-your autosaved file are going into their own subfolder right?

-just from curiosity are you autosaving by time or operations?

-is it just the one file?

Albeit I am on Windows and lie under a different magnetic field, but since the 11.5 patch I have only crashed twice and backup files were in perfect order. I use the operations criteria for auto backups. I have noticed however that if I open and work in a backup file VW will not produce another one for me. That's why I wondered if your backups were in the same folder, perhaps that screws it up.

[mike m oz]

Delmer

- autosave is into a VW Backup subfolder inside the project folder.

- time (15 minutes)

- at the moment it is just one file.

It's wierd - I have had one further crash which lost me 10 minutes of work.

I have now purged the file in question of everything possible in it including the 3D.

[Delmer]

There is always the option of copying everything to a new file. Depending on the file complexity that 15 minutes or so can save your hair in the long run. Its possible that you can also copy what is corrupting the file, but I have had reasonable success saving file info this way.

There is no reason why it should make a difference but you might try saving by operations as opposed to time.

I have worked with some Japanese guys who found that Buddhist prayer beads seemed to have an effect as well.

[LarryAZ]

Mike,

I've been watching this thread and I wonder if it is 10.4 related. I have gotten into the habit of saving after every handful of operations so I very rarely see the autosave dialog. I have not seen an "unexpectedly quit" sense upgrading to 11.5 and I've never had OSX crash.

This makes me want to wait to upgrade OSX until this kind of stuff gets sorted out.

[mike m oz]

Larry - I susperct it is as it seems to be a hiccup in the write to file on the hard drive. This is a file management issue which I assume is the OS's domain.

I am on 10.4.1