Recovering a drawing

[Anonymous]

I had AutoCAD 2017 crash while I was saving the drawing. When I restarted AutoCAD to try recover the drawing, it had completely disappeared. All that remain are the .bak file, which is a couple of hours out of date, and some temparary save files with extension .ac$. Is there any way to recover the drawing from an .ac$ file? I know you can easily restore an automatic save .sv$ file.

[BeKirra]

Before trying recover, change "ac$" to "dwg". Then open it.

Hopefully you'll be fine.

[imadHabash · Accepted solution]

Hi and Welcome to AutoCAD Forum,

>> All that remain are the .bak file, which is a couple of hours out of date, <<

is that mean that you're working many hours without saving ???!!!!

>> ... and some temparary save files with extension .ac$. <<

By default, temporary files have an .ac$ extension. These files contain information that is used by various AutoCAD commands, such as UNDO, and do not contain any drawing data that can be recovered. They should only exist during an AutoCAD session but may be left behind if AutoCAD crashes or is abnormally terminated.

>> I know you can easily restore an automatic save .sv$ file. <<

Automatic saves are only done if a drawing has been modified after the last save. QSAVE, SAVE, and SAVEAS will delete the current .sv$ file and halt the automatic save timer until an edit is made to the drawing. If AutoCAD crashes or is otherwise abnormally terminated during a session, you can recover data saved in .sv$ files by locating the autosave file, renaming the .sv$ extension to dwg and then opening that file in AutoCAD. The autosave file will contain all drawing information as of the last time autosave ran. When AutoCAD closes normally, .sv$ files are deleted.

Note: Disabling automatic save ( OPTIONS >> Open and Save tab ) prevents AutoCAD from automatically creating sv$ files while you work. In the event of a crash, there will be no interim files to use for data recovery.

Regards,

[Anonymous]

I had tried that, thinking it would be the same as the .sv$ file, but to no avail. Message received "Drawing file invalid"

[Anonymous]

Thank you, you have answered my question.

I do have autosave set to 30 minutes, and I was actually busy saving the drawing when AutoCAD crashed. Usually AutoCAD gives you the opportunity to try save you drawing so that it can be recovered, but on this occasion it didn't. What was particularly weird for me was that my drawing file disappeared completely.

[imadHabash]

>> I do have autosave set to 30 minutes <<

please make for 5-10 minutes not more . 

>> What was particularly weird for me was that my drawing file disappeared completely. <<

sorry for that ... it's too hard and painful to loose hours from your efforts . But as a final try ... would you please check files existing in C:\Users\ (  your user name ) \AppData\Local\Temp . after making sure that extensions for files are appeared .  

good luck .. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks.
Setting autosave time to 5-10 mins is not on here in SA. Working with not quite the ideal spec computers, drawings saved on network server in another city connected through very restricted internet bandwidth and quite large drawing files means that save time takes about 2-5 minutes. With autosave set to 10 minutes I wouldn't get very much work done during the day and it would be extremely frustrating to say the least. I haven't had many problems with the autosave time set at 30 mins, it does become a bit frustrating when working with large 3D files in Civil 3D, but I do normally save quite regularly anyway.

[BeKirra]

Sorry, my bad. "ac$" is not a backup file. I meant a "sv$" file.

What Imad has said is right, too.

"Setting autosave time to 5-10 mins is not on here in SA. Working with not quite the ideal spec computers, drawings saved on network server in another city..."

I can feel your pain. However, autosave doesn't save a backup file to the same location of your drawing file.

It always saves "sv$" files in "C:\Users\ (your user name) \AppData\Local\Temp" unless the path is changed.

To check the path you can paste (getvar "savefilepath") to command line.

BTW other than open "Options" dialog, paste (setvar "savetime" 5) to command line so you set the auto save time to 5min.

Search system variable "savetime" in HELP for more explanation.

HTH

[Anonymous]

So my question is similar but may be slightly different. Not sure. When I try to open my drawings, I get a message that says “cannot open file, please try to upload again” but the problem is I never uploaded any of my drawings in the 1st place. I use Autodesk AutoCAD Mobile.  Ive always drawn the plans on my ipad. I dont draw them somewhere else then upload them to this app. 

Can anyone tell me how to recover them. I have spent so many hours and weeks on our dream house floor plan as well as smaller client projects. 

Desperate for help!!!!!!!!!!!!!