Autosave Not Functioning

[resullins]

Next you are going to tell me you also leave drawings open too?

 

Yes. Yes I do. It's not a deliberate thing most of the time... but more often than I'd like to admit, the child starts screaming for dinner when I'm in the middle of a thought, and I just walk away. Since I work from home, I'm not usually worried about it.

[ReMark]

In between the child starts screaming for dinner and you walk away from your computer do you save what you are working on? What if during the time you are away from your computer God sends a thunderbolt down striking the utility pole that feeds your house and you lose all power? S#!+ happens. Like the Boy Scouts say, "Be prepared".

[resullins]

Well, my poor computer habits aside... why wouldn't autosave be working properly?

 

I will try to get better about my computer... but A:) this is also my home computer, that I often use at night, and B:) I often work after the baby goes to bed, but I never know when that will be... so I usually just leave my computer on.

[ReMark]

Why wouldn't AutoSave work correctly? Let's see. The computer is running. AutoCAD is open but there is no activity to speak of. Microsoft decides it's update time and sees no reason not to proceed. It downloads and installs the updates. It now decides it's time to Restart. AutoCAD does not see a "crash" and for whatever reason doesn't consider being shutdown by Windows as an abnormal termination of the program, thus it does not create a .sv$ file. That's my theory.

 

Bad habits tend to come back and bite us in the gluteus maximus when we least expect them to. Isn't that how it always works? That's the way it works in my house.

[resullins]

But auto saving wasn't saving for the 5 hours PRIOR to when the activity stopped. I was working on that file until 6:30 last night. The autosave file was from 1:30 that day. That's not bad habits... that's a problem. What if my computer had legitimately crashed? I would still be up the creek without a paddle through no fault of my own.

 

Also, I called our IT company, they run manual updates on all the computers once a week, overriding the Windows Update settings. So that mystery's solved.

[resullins]

Ok... here's another question... is there something I can use (an alarm clock software) or something to remind me to save my file every 30 minutes or so? And something that will beep incessantly at 6 pm until I shut down my computer? I know there are Droid or iPhone apps that will do this, but I don't know how to do it on my computer.

 

I need to retrain myself. I've gotten sloppy since working from home.

 

And I'm still reporting my Autosave bug to AutoDesk.

[ReMark]

Is AutoSave triggered if there is no activity? I've never checked.

[resullins]

Look three posts above. There was 5 hours of activity where it wasn't triggering.

[ReMark]

And during that time did you execute any hard saves?

 

Do you use MS Outlook by any chance?

 

A program called Notezilla has a reminder alarm. It works in Windows 7 however it is $29.95. Maybe someone here knows of something similar that is free.

[resullins]

Nope. I kinda thought that was the point of autosave.

 

The only hard save I did during the day was at 1:30 pm, because AC started glitching. My crosshairs disappeared.

[ReMark]

I never rely upon AutoSave even though it is set for 15 minute intervals. I've programmed myself to do a hard save after making what I consider a significant change or changes to a drawing.

[resullins]

I do use outlook.... I will check that out. I'm still concerned about my Autosave though. Like I said, I work from home, and my power and internet is not what one would call reliable. I have a battery backup, but it does NOT last long on my computer. Like, if I happen to be grabbing a cup of coffee when the power goes off, I'll never get everything saved in time.

 

I've called my reseller, and we'll see what they say. Until then, I guess I'm just gonna be working all weekend.

[resullins]

I never rely upon AutoSave even though it is set for 15 minute intervals. I've programmed myself to do a hard save after making what I consider a significant change or changes to a drawing.

 

And I had never had problems with AutoSave until the last two releases, so I never did get into that habit. And now I will have to pretty well reprogram myself. Ugh. This just couldn't have come at a worse time. And the worst part about this crap is it's a large schematic, that I made small changes to in literally hundreds of places, and I have NO idea what all I did... I will have to pick apart every single connector with a fine-tooth comb to get it back to where is was. Seriously... going to cry.

[ReMark]

You can program in a reminder in Outlook via the calendar. When it pops up just hit the Snooze button and it will reset to the interval you specify. I think it is set up to trigger 5 minutes before the specified time interval so take that into account when you set yours.

[ReMark]

And I had never had problems with AutoSave until the last two releases, so I never did get into that habit. And now I will have to pretty well reprogram myself. Ugh. This just couldn't have come at a worse time. And the worst part about this crap is it's a large schematic, that I made small changes to in literally hundreds of places, and I have NO idea what all I did... I will have to pick apart every single connector with a fine-tooth comb to get it back to where is was. Seriously... going to cry.

There's no crying in CAD! What do you think this is, "A League of Their Own"? When was the last .bak file created? Oh, that's right, no hard saves. Yep, you have your work cut out for you.

[nestly]

IMO, it sounds like "something" caused Windows to restart (probably Windows Update), and Windows shut down AutoCAD without saving the open drawing. Because AutoCAD was "shut down" the .sv$ files was deleted.

 

An "UnDelete" program may be able to recover the .sv$ files, as deleted files aren't really "deleted" they're just renamed and marked so the space they occupy on the harddrive may be overwritten.

 

It's unfortunate that Autodesk hasn't made improvements to the way AutoSave works... because it does not work the way a reasonably intelligent person would expect it to work. Obviously, QSAVE (CTRL+S) often is the best way for a user to protect themselves from the unexpected, but other options include changing the autosave location to a folder where AutoCAD has write permission, but not delete permissions. This method requires the user to manually delete the .sv$ files occasionally or they'll eventually fill up the whole drive. I've also seen lisps with reactors that will trigger a QSAVE base on another action or command.

 

Lastly, I don't think Autosave continues to save at the specified interval unless the drawing has been changed since the last Save/AutoSave.

[resullins]

@Nestly: I figured that part out. Our IT company overrides your update settings to manually force everyone's computer to update once a week. And here I thought I had a ghost.

 

I'm trying UnDelete now, but not having much luck. It's not pulling up anything that's been deleted in the last 7 days in my Temp folder. Which is extraordinarily odd, because if AutoCAD had been Autosaving and deleting to that location, shouldn't there be remnants? It is, however, pulling up some NASTY stuff out of my Recycle Bin. The IT boys must have drained that when they updated my computer last. There are THOUSANDS of files that have been deleted from there in the last 7 days.

 

I should probably look into a reactor lisp. That might be the best idea for me. But I can't think of a command that I use often enough for it to be helpful, but not often enough that it would save every 4.5 seconds. I will also look into changing my save location. How do you give a specific program write but not delete permissions?

 

Lastly, that's the problem... again, I was changing the drawing CONSTANTLY for 5 hours after the last hard save. And Autosave still didn't trigger.

[rkent]

Change permission for the autosave folder to write but not delete? I think that is a thing.

[resullins]

Change permission for the autosave folder to write but not delete? I think that is a thing.

 

But what about when I need to go in and delete stuff? I guess I just temporarily change the permissions?

[rkent]

But what about when I need to go in and delete stuff? I guess I just temporarily change the permissions?

 

sheesh you want everything don't you ?

 

I assume you can move files from a folder with those permissions, then delete from that folder.

 

I seriously save my files every 3 or 4 minutes, just a habit that has paid off a few times. Hitting Q enter takes very little time and once in the habit it will just happen. I save before plotting, before moving from AutoCAD to another program, before getting up, answering the phone, wblocking, what ever I save often. You get the idea.