Autosave Screws Me Again

[Anonymous]

I am so irate right now. I have lost yet another drawing.

The system went down at some point last night, and everything on my computer was shut down. No biggie, right, just go to my last Autosave. Which, given the time stamp, was perfect.

NOPE. When I try to open it, I get this, "Can't find the specified file". Unbelievable. In fact, it won't open ANY of my back-up files.

I'm sitting at my desk absolutely shaking. So, here I sit, days of drawing COMPLETELY GONE, and I have to present this to my boss in an hour.

Nice JOB AUTOCAD. May have just cost me JOB. This is NOT the first time this happened.

[Anonymous]

Where are your saved files kept? On your C drive?

Go to saved file and change suffic from sav to dwg. then open

[pendean]

>>>...I'm sitting at my desk absolutely shaking...<<<
You went "days" without ever backing up your files? Does the Boss know this?

Do you manually save often? If yes, where is your BAK file? If not, why not?

Did you correctly find and rename the SV$ autosave file?

Which file is offering the "Can't find the specified file" error exactly?

[Anonymous]

Autosave was never intended to replace proper saving habits and techniques, it was intended to recover what it could in the event of a catastrophic system failure and maybe salvage the last 15-30 minutes worth of work.  The function ONLY saves an autosave file if you have failed to properly save the drawing in the SAVETIME you've set in the system.  If you've set it to 20 minutes, and don't properly save in that 20 minutes the function creates a file in the autosave directory you specify in SAVEFILEPATH called <filename>.$SV.  If you properly save at some subsequent time that $SV file is deleted.  If you don't properly save for 40 minutes a new $SV is created and the old one (if backup is implemented) is renamed BAK.  

If you're not manually saving (QS, CTRL+S) every 15 to 30 minutes you are the problem, not the application.  There is no reasonable, acceptable excuse for anyone to lose more than 30 minutes work for any reason other than a completely corrupted file.

I've created a directory on my hard-drive called C:\Autosave specifically for this function.

[AllenJessup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I've created a directory on my hard-drive called C:\Autosave specifically for this function.

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If AutoCAD thinks it's closed properly or fails in certain ways. The AutoSave file will be deleted. So I've gone a bit further. I have change the rights on my folder to deny the System the right to delete files. So mine are never erased by the program. This does take diligence in keeping the folder clean.

[AllenJessup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

NOPE. When I try to open it, I get this, "Can't find the specified file". Unbelievable. In fact, it won't open ANY of my back-up files. 

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OK. Can you find the files in Windows Explorer? Can you copy them to a different location. AutoCAD doesn't have a stand alone file browser but relies on Windows Explorer. So a problem with Explorer can cause such a problem. Does another reboot solve anything?

Can you copy the Autosave of BAK file then rename to .DWG then do a recover?

I've had my computer restart during the night a half dozen times in the past few weeks. IT just fixed the problem today. But I never had any problem opening the file the next morning. Just lost the animation I was running.

[dgorsman]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you're not manually saving (QS, CTRL+S) every 15 to 30 minutes you are the problem, not the application.  There is no reasonable, acceptable excuse for anyone to lose more than 30 minutes work for any reason other than a completely corrupted file.

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Indeed.  Its not uncommon to see "old timers" sitting at their desk periodically typing Q S SPACEBAR as they think something through.

[Anonymous]

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AllenJessup wrote:

If AutoCAD thinks it's closed properly or fails in certain ways. The AutoSave file will be deleted. So I've gone a bit further. I have change the rights on my folder to deny the System the right to delete files. So mine are never erased by the program. This does take diligence in keeping the folder clean.

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Yes it does delete that file, that is PRIMARILY why one should not depend on that directory to save files.  If I'm PROPERLY saving my files that directory should always be empty.  If that folder is NOT empty I have failed to properly manage my work.

[Anonymous]

I have had issues where CAD had crashed on me and I lost what I had drawn. My trick to never losing a drawing again is to click "save" to exit every command. If you "ESC", it does not save. Draw a line, hit save. You usually need to exit the current command to start a new one anyway, so just hit "SAVE" instead of "ESC" and your troubles will be over. 

Trust me, if you lose enough work, you have to remember what you just drew and redo everything.

[mart.wagner]

Autosave also let me down in some cases. I am now using SureSave which seem to be more safe.

MW

[RobDraw]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am so irate right now. I have lost yet another drawing.

The system went down at some point last night, and everything on my computer was shut down. No biggie, right, just go to my last Autosave. Which, given the time stamp, was perfect.

NOPE. When I try to open it, I get this, "Can't find the specified file". Unbelievable. In fact, it won't open ANY of my back-up files.

I'm sitting at my desk absolutely shaking. So, here I sit, days of drawing COMPLETELY GONE, and I have to present this to my boss in an hour.

Nice JOB AUTOCAD. May have just cost me JOB. This is NOT the first time this happened.

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I hope you learned something this time. 

It's almost impossible lose an entire drawing. That's what back-ups are for. AutoCAD has two options for recovering from a crash. Both of them require changing the file extension. Did you do that? It sounds like you didn't.

You cannot blame the program. You only have yourself to blame. Losing some work as the result of a crash is absolutely possible, but, entire files, not an AutoCAD issue.

I'm sure there is a file somewhere that will allow you to recover most of your work. When you're done playing the blame game, explore what others have already said and maybe you can prevent losing your job.

[Anonymous]

Autosave will only let you down if you fail to properly save your work as you go.