Drawing changes are being lost.

A lot of us in our office are having problems saving drawings. We make our changes save the drawing then later on when going back to the drawing we will notice that the changes haven't saved. I have noticed this for a while but always put it down to my own bad memory or plain old stupidity now other people are mentioning it.

We have a Microsoft Exchange server that is seperated down into various drives then the main work drive is seperated down into folders which are locked down so only people in that department can access them.

I am using 2010LT everyone else is using 2007LT (until I can persuade the boss to change us all :-) .)

Has anyone else had problems like this?

Until the problem is corrected is there any chance you can save to an external drive or a flash drive (locally)? In the meantime, the IT people should be notified immediately.

I have told the IT crowd about the problem, initially they thought it was a 2007 problem, not a network problem (i.e. not our problem!) until I reported my missing saves.

I was just wondering if anyone else had any problems with a Microsoft server so I could give them a pointer, then they might finally upgrade my machine ;-) So far I'm saving on my machine as well and upping my Autosaves but they seem quite intermittent as well (i.e. I have none for yesterday).

Do you also have AutoCAD set up to create a backup (.bak) file?

Yes,

Under options, open & save I have set up automatic saves as .bak files and to save every 2 minutes. I also have create a back up copy with each save ticked.

I have the automatic saves stored to C:\autosaves rather than the document & settings/blah/blah/etc/etc default ACAD setting so I can find them quickly. Although I'll have to check the settings the other guys have used.

Can you show the IT people the difference(s) in the files between saving locally to your computer and saving the files to the network ?

That would be the only way to convince them that it is a network issue, and not a machine issue

Has anyone from IT been around to talk to you yet?

They wanted to move our project files from one drive to another, unfortunately some of my colleagues have been creating X-refs as fixed path and we have a drawing issue this week and can't afford the time to reping all of the x ref paths.

Unfortunately whenever I've had the problem sinceI found out that it might not be me cocking up I haven't been able to find my autosave, does anyone else find that it's hit and miss on creating them? Every so often I do have to restart a command when the autosave happens so I know it is doing them (sometimes.)

"...I haven't been able to find my autosave."

Have you checked the system variable SAVEFILEPATH lately? From your AutoCAD Help file:

"SAVEFILEPATH - A system variable that sets the path to the folder where all autosave files are stored for the current session."

The SAVEFILEPATH can be changed by going into Tools > Options > Files and looking under Automatic Save File Location.

Thanks, but I checked it using the savefilepath command and it is pointing where I put it.

What is strange though, is that whilst I have been typing this reply my current drawing was autosaved

Automatic save to C:\Drawings\Auto Saves\45-03 WH119 Phase 2 G Floor Joist

Layout_1_1_4084.sv$ ...

But when I checked the autosave folder nothing has been saved since Friday and I have set up the autosaves to be .bak not .sy$.

I'm getting all confused!

Autosave = .bak.

.sc$ = Temporary file.

 

But when I checked the autosave folder nothing has been saved since Friday and I have set up the autosaves to be .bak not .sy$.

 

I'm getting all confused!

Automatic saved files are deleted once AutoCAD is shut down

Might we have a terminology mix up going on here?

Might we have a terminology mix up going on here?

From AutoCAD 2008 Help

For .sv$ Files

If you turn the automatic save option on, your drawing is saved at

specified time intervals. By default, files saved automatically are

temporarily assigned the name filename_a_b_nnnn.sv$.

• Filename is the current drawing name.
  
• a is the number of open instances of the same drawing file in the same work session.
  
• b is the number of open instances of the same drawing in different work sessions.
  
• nnnn is a random number.

These temporary files are automatically deleted when a drawing

closes normally. In the event of a program failure or a power failure,

these files are not deleted.

To recover a previous version of your drawing from the automatically

saved file, rename the file using a .dwg extension in place of the .sv$

extension before you close the program.

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For .bak files

In the Options dialog box, on the Open and Save tab, you can specify

that backup files are created when you save drawings. If you do,

each time you save a drawing, the previous version of your drawing is

saved to a file with the same name and a .bak file extension. The

backup file is located in the same folder as the drawing file.

You can revert to your backup version by renaming the .bak file in

Windows Explorer to a file with a .dwg extension. You may want to

copy it to a different folder to avoid overwriting your original file.

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Hope this helps