XCOMPAREBACKUP Folder

[AllenJessup]

Our Surveyor brought this to my attention and I see it’s happening to me also.

We have both created folders for temporary files. These are set in Options under Automatic Save File Location.

These folders end up containing an alphanumerically named folder. Ex. 0FC61B388D5E0F6B. These folders contain sub folders; Local, Roaming and Temp. Local and Roaming contain sub-folders XCOMPAREBACKUP. That folder has an alphanumerical sub-folder for each drawing. Those folders get clogged with backup drawings. There is a Knowledge Network article on it HERE.

However. Even with XCOMPAREENABLE set to zero (0) these files keep getting created. Is there a way to stop this?

XCOMPAREBAKPATH is set to the default. No drawing backup files have been created in that folder in the past 45 days. Files have been created in my Temp file location 2 days ago. We regularly clean out these folders. But my Surveyor says he sometimes need to clean his out in the middle of the day.

XCOMPAREBAKSIZE is set to 500MB but his can rise to over 1GB each in Roaming and Local.

[pendean]

TEMP folders can be emptied often and regularly without much damage to anything: any reason you folks are not doing that regularly if disk space is critical?

>>>...We have both created folders for temporary files. These are set in Options under Automatic Save File Location....<<<

What do you both have these locations set to?

[dmfrazier]

"These are set in Options under Automatic Save File Location."

Is that what you meant? Or did you mean "XRef Backup File Location"?

[AllenJessup]

The Xref Backup Location is set to the default. All other are set to a specific folder. It's the creation of Xref Compre Backups in the Temp AutoCAD folder that's the issue.

[AllenJessup]

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@dmfrazier wrote:

"These are set in Options under Automatic Save File Location."

Is that what you meant? Or did you mean "XRef Backup File Location"?

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See my answer to @pendean.  Automatic Save File Location is set to the Temp AutoCAD folder. The XRef Backup File Location is set to the default C:\<user name>\jessupa\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\C3D 2022\enu\XCompareBackup

[dmfrazier]

Gotcha.

In my case (with AutoCAD 2021), the XRef Backup File Location and the Temporary Drawing File Location are set to their respective defaults. My Automatic Save File Location is customized, similar to yours (but not an established "Temp file" location, and not the same folder as either of the above).

I have not used the XRef compare utility, but XCompareEnable has been ON (the default), so (of course) I have a bunch of files that have accumulated in the XRef Backup File Location. I just deleted all of them and turned off XCompareEnable. I'll monitor it for a while and see if this changes anything in terms of backup file accumulation. I think it's reasonable to expect that no files would accumulate (makes sense, right?), but I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite happens. (This is the crux of your issue, correct?)

[AllenJessup]

Yes. I've had XCOMPAREENABLE off. I just found out that our Surveyor had it on. That may explain why he gets such a buildup. But I still get some files created in the Temp AutoCAD folder. I haven't been able to figure out why. 

[dmfrazier]

It looks like you've got a few things pointing to that C:\Temp AutoCAD folder. That may complicate troubleshooting.

Where does your Blocks Sync folder point?

Might it be helpful to create subfolders under C:\Temp AutoCAD to keep the different sources segregated?

[AllenJessup]

Blocks Sync is the Default.

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\C3D 2022\enu