topic Re: Recovery save not working in Fusion Support Forum

Recovery save not working

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 19:37:18 GMT

Auto recovery save is not working... 2x I worked for ~ 2 hrs and then... boom... crash... and no save. Using the manual crash recover save (ctrl-Shift-S) does save a file, and I found it according to the post online... but the file is .bak When I change to .f3d and try to load either by double click or load to data panel, it fails. When using the data panel, it gives some error message for <1 second and then goes away....

Re: Recovery save not working

Phil.E — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 20:41:02 GMT

Hi,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble. Thanks for sending in that CER report. Be sure to send in every one. Those help us fix Fusion crashes. I think there are a few things to help you in this current situation.

The main thing I want you to know is the save button is very important in Fusion. It locks in your modeling progress by sending the saved data to the cloud for storage. Perhaps every half hour or so you could try saving the design. Each save gives an opportunity to put a comment into the design history.

Please note: There are a few activities that block recovery saves. When commands are running, or you are editing a sketch, recovery save cannot function.

Also, to open recovery designs: The file recovery dialog is best.

Or use the file menu.

Re: Recovery save not working

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 04:00:45 GMT

Thank you for the reply.

If the file was in the recovery dialog, then there would be no issue. Fact is it is not. I worked on a specific file for about 5 hours on and off all day today. Fusion crashed no less than 5 times and never even once did it save a recovery file that was visible in the recovery dialog. I spent more than 3 hours researching online why auto recovery doesn't work. I really like the idea of doing saves as I finish various aspects of the model.... but I guess I can't do that and need to save every 5-15 minutes. No other program that I use crashes so much and worse doesn't save. I tried using the crash recovery save option with control-shift-S and indeed there was a file in the "crash recovery" folder. I changed the file extension from .bak to .f3d. It still wouldn't load. So, at the end of the day, I made 1.5 hrs progress on a model I needed to make 8 hrs progress on and I am left to try to manually save the model every few minutes.... because the crashes are so unpredictable... for example the last crash was literally when I clicked on a planar surface of a body I created in fusion as the base plane in the create a sketch command... nothing more basic than that... but sorry crash... and (of course) the file is not there. Actually, I have learned to live with the crashes, and until yesterday the auto save always worked, but not now.... what next? Also, don't tell me the autosave isn't working because I am in a command. I am used to that message... I see it all the time. Didn't come up once today. That is not the problem. Plus I was idle for 10's of minutes at a time... but no autosaved files.

Re: Recovery save not working

Phil.E — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:34:50 GMT

First I think we should address a key issue here:

The save button is in the UI for a reason. There is no reference to automatic saving anywhere in Fusion.
Recovery save is a "hail mary", not a workflow.
Every desktop CAD application has a save button, for the same reason.
My advice: Use Save to create meaningful versions of your design. Label them with descriptions.

Next, regarding crashes:

I'm telling you this as a QA who specializes in getting crashes fixed. I only see 4 CER reports from this year from you. This means you either aren't sending them in, or are force quitting Windows while it is in a long compute.

Can you describe these "crashes"? I'd really like to find out why you feel that Fusion is crashing all the time and perhaps try to reproduce the same on my end. This will help me log a case that a developer will spend time on. If I have no CER reports, and no reproducing workflow, I cannot urge fixes that affect you. Please let me know what I can do to understand your crash situation and improve it for you.

When you say "I tried using the crash recovery save option with control-shift-S and indeed there was a file in the "crash recovery" folder." Are you saying the recovery save dialog did not show this design? There should be no need to dig around in the guts of Fusion looking for these files. We expect any recovery design file to be in the dialog. It's just not clear from your report that you use the dialog.

Thanks,

Re: Recovery save not working

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:56:05 GMT

Thanks for the response.

First as an update, I set an appointment today and James helped me. So far we solved why the crash recovery files were not working. They needed to be f3z and loaded to the data panel. I got back 1 crash recovery from yesterday.

To answer your points.

1) saving. No program that I use CAD or other actually require saving every 10 or 15 minutes. I usually work for an hour or 2 then save at a meaningful point. I guess I need to abandon that, and I will. I never lost more than an hour or 2 of work, but that doesn't make it less frutrating when it happens over and over.

2) Recovery save --There was another post that suggested using a recovery save as an intermediate save. I was using it for that. I was surprised when those files were not useable.

3) Crashes -- I know what you mean. The crashes I am talking about from yesterday are not long computes, fusion closes on its own. I havent always sent in the crash reports so I get it that you cant see... I will do a better job of that. Sometimes sending the report hangs as well. We can address the reasons for the crashes in the future. I have learned to accept crashes as "that just the way fusion works" because I am always working with big imported models... That said, sometimes I do have to cancel a long compute. In the past I would always have a recovery dialogue after restart. Now it doesn't work... and I learned today that if you cancel a long compute by force closeing fusion, fusion deletes the crash recovery file (arrgh!!) Goes back to point 1.

4) "Are you saying the recovery save dialog did not show this design?" Yes. No recovery files. No dialogue, no files accessible from file...recover documents. When I was having the problem yesterday, dialog wasn't there and "hail mary" crash recover not working either.... so thats why I asked for help.

Re: Recovery save not working

Phil.E — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:13:55 GMT

Thanks. Please let us know when you think you can repeat a crash, I'll follow up.

I take a more rounded approach to saving. For instance, I ask my students at the college I teach night school to save about every 15 minutes. This is quick, painless, and ensures the student loses none of their precious time. For Inventor it's instantaneous capture of progress. I can't imagine not doing saves very often while using Inventor.

For Fusion, the advice is similar, just capture progress in your workflow. Something you "don't want to redo" is a good indicator that a save is prudent.

It also sounds like you have a good understanding of the things that are stressful in Fusion, you mention working with large imported assemblies for instance. So when you are about to begin a workflow that you know will use a lot of memory and compute power, perhaps then is a good time to save your previous progress. Let your instincts guide you.

In this way you can probably avoid losing progress and not have to save versions every 15 minutes. If you truly are doing so much work in a 15 minute time span, then the answer is written above, save the progress "you don't want to redo".

Definitely send in those CER. I follow the crashes via automatic means. So if you are concerned, please just post a CER_Number here and ping me.

Thanks,