Auto-save didn't do its job!

[Scoox]

Just encountered a situation where Fusion 360 wouldn't let me pan/orbit/zoom my model, but I was still able to access the menus and other UI elements so I saved my work (going from v4 to v5, typed in a version description and clicked OK as usual), and then tried to close Fusion 360, which unfortunately froze as soon as I clicked the 'X' titlebar button. It wasn't the only program that would refuse to close and Windows wouldn't let me restart the system, so I forcibly shut down. It must have been a system-wide issue, maybe a disk IO error

Anyway, after booting back into Windows, I started Fusion 360 again, and discovered my project was still at version v4, not v5 as I expected. Fusion 360 didn't display the dialog to recover auto-saved data, even though I have my auto recovery save interval set to the default 5 minutes and I had been working on my design  for about an hour. In the File menu I can see Recover Documsnts (0) meaning no documents are available for recovery. I've attached my logs to this message to provide further insight.

Based on this Autodesk Knowledge Network article, recovery files are created in the following directory:

C:\users\<username>\APPDATA\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\<GUID>\CrashRecovery

None of the .backup files present in that folder contained the latest changes I made to my design, which is kinda odd. However, I was able to recover my work from a .f3d file in a subdir of the following directory:

C:\Users\Manuel\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\58H3R3DM8DXF\W.login

Unfortunately, the file from which I recovered my work didn't contain the design history, so when I opened it in Fusion I started at v1, although in this case it's not a problem as I was the only person working on this design.

I've just been doing a bit more testing to try to figure out how the whole file recovery thing works. Here are the things I understand (possibly incorrectly):

1. Automatic recovery (Ctrl+S) and manual recovery (Shift+Ctrl+S) files are all saved to the CrashRecovery directory mentioned above.
2. Automatic recovery (Ctrl+S) and manual recovery (Shift+Ctrl+S) files are functionally identical, the only difference being that the former are automatically created on a schedule, while the latter are created pre-emptively by the user.
3. The above CrashRecovery directory contains a single recovery file for each design, which is overwritten with each recovery save operation.
4. Automatic recovery saving only happens if there is something to be saved.

I would be grateful if someone could confirm the validity of the above points. If there is an official detailed documentation on auto-save and all those obscure folders, I'd be very interested if someone could share a link to it.

And here are the things I don't understand:

1.This forum message by James Youmatz says recovery save files are deleted upon manually saving the design or an intentional exit of Fusion (not a crash or force quit). Does this mean if I force quite Fusion 360 any auto saves will remain on my drive until I delete them manually?

2. I notice a number of .backup files in my CrashRecovery fodler corresponding to designs I've not touched for months, and which I know were definitely saved correctly (I can check on myhub.autodesk360.com), if what James says is correct, shouldn't these files have been deleted automatically?

3. There are two CrashRecovery folders on my hard drive:

C:\Users\Manuel\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\CrashRecovery

C:\Users\Manuel\AppData\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\58H3R3DM8DXF\CrashRecovery

The first one is empty, while the second one contains the recovery files. What is the first folder for?

4. I'm not sure what Help menu > Clear user cache data intended to do. According to this message by Paul Clauss, this command clears the "local cache folder" which is:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\58H3R3DM8DXF\W.login

However, when I run this command nothing happens to that folder. Instead, it deletes the CrashRecovery folder mentioned earlier. The W.login folder contains a whole load of files referring to old projects. Is there an official way to flush that folder? Should I delete the files manually or are they better left alone?

5. My W.login directory contains the following sub-directories, all of which look pretty similar:

...\W.login\D

...\W.login\F

...\W.login\Q

I'm curious, what do the D, F and Q represent?

6. There are two CrashRecovery folders:

C:\Users\Manuel\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\58H3R3DM8DXF\CrashRecovery

C:\Users\Manuel\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\CrashRecovery

The first one is the one I mentioned earlier, containing the recovery files, but the second one is an empty folder, what is it for?

I could be over-analysing things but experienced data lost three times since I started using Fusion 360, so I want to have a good understanding of how and where data is saved, to prevent further problems down the line.

Your help is much appreciated!

[James.Youmatz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Scoox,

Thanks for posting and hope you had a great Holiday!

I'm going to try to answer these as best I can, but let me know if you need clarity. I've also asked the team to take a peek at this as well, in case they can add any color into the backend as to what Auto-Save does.

Regarding your 1-4 testing:

1. I believe CTRL+S does an automatic save (not crash recovery). The big difference here is that a save versions the design whereas a crash recovery does NOT. It used to be this functionality a few years ago, but at this point in time, crash recovery does NOT version your design.
2. Correct - there really are no differences in how it is saved besides what I described in 1. 
3. Correct! It is also deleted upon Manual save or close without saving (and are successful).
4. Yes. It is also will suspend auto-save if you are currently in a command - i.e. a let's say the 5 minutes is up and it is time to auto-save, but you are in the Extrude command, the auto-save will be suspended. If this is the case, auto-save will retry every minute until it is able to be successfully auto-saved. If too many retries fail (I believe 4 in a row), then an auto-save will happen automatically as soon as you exit the command.

Regarding the list of questions:

1. That is correct except that for any auto-saves that are not automatically deleted, should be deleted the next time the file is opened and a new version is saved. I.e. we do not store older versions of automatic saves to my knowledge. Need to verify this however.
2. This is why I need to check my answer for #1 🙂
3. Need to find out from our development team what the one without the login ID does. Mine is leftover from March of this year and most likely was cleaned up or legacy from an older version of Fusion. The second folder in points specifically your login ID (the alphanumeric number). These are specific to the end user. I.e. if I logged into your computer with Fusion, mine would be C:\Users\Manuel\AppData\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\<jamesloginid>\CrashRecovery
   1. The one in localappdata is the one where crash recovery's are actually located.
4. I wouldn't touch your w.login folder. This contains all datasets and how we handle the files. We really only recommend flushing this (with our help) if things start going awry. Regarding the clear local cache command - it is non-data specific cache, therefore your W.Login folder is not affected. I'll have to follow up to get an exact listing of what this command deletes (as it has changed over time), but for the most part is is preferences, etc.
5. This will clarify a bit more why you should leave the W.Login folder alone.
   1. The D folder stands for delta. This contains the data that is being "changed" inbetween versions (simply put). For instance, if you only did an extrude and saved, instead of saving the entire full design again (thus wasting space and upload data), we upload the delta and add it to the original design. For efficiency sake.
   2. F is your offline cache. Feel free to delete this if you want, but this is your offline cache. Pretty straightforward. This folder actually gets cleaned by your offline cache preference in Fusion. Mine is set to every 60 days.
   3. Q, this is the tricky one. This is your upload queue folder. If anything is being saved or uploaded, here is where it goes. It goes in correspondence with the uploadqueue.xml file which lists in order what files need to be uploaded. A lot of times if there is an upload clog, these are the two folders we recommend cleaning up (with some assistance from the log files to know exactly which files are clogging the pipe.)
6. See #3? 

Regarding your logs:

What is the file name in question? From your logs I see:

20171226T163223 I Force auto save was successful for: Novation Launchpad S v4
20171226T164222 I Searching next valid document to autosave
20171226T164222 I No document selected for autosave in this iteration

20171225T143225 I Starting Autosave for: DJ Controller Coffin v4. Document Type is: Fusion Document
20171225T143225 I Saved option file: ***/Roaming/Autodesk/Neutron Platform/Options/***/NGlobalOptions.xml
20171225T143225 I Saved option file: ***/Roaming/Autodesk/Neutron Platform/Options/NMachineSpecificOptions.xml
20171225T143226 I Finished autosaving document: DJ Controller Coffin v4
20171225T143226 I Searching next valid document to autosave
20171225T143226 I No document selected for autosave in this iteration

It does look like auto-save was completed in the logs. If these files were successful the ONLY thing I can think of is Fusion did not think it was Force-Quit (somehow) and since it exited, did not store the auto-save. What was the file name so I can dig into this more. 

Thanks,

[Scoox]

Thanks for your thorough reply, James, hope you had a nice break too. I must apologize because my previous message was a bit of a mess:

I completely got my facts wrong with point 1 of my testing: what I really meant was manual recovery save (Shift+Ctrl+S) vs automatic save, the latter of course having no associated keyboard shortcut as it's triggered by the software on a schedule. My observation was that manual and automatic recovery save both achieve the exact same result. Would be interesting to know whether the automatic recovery save timer (5 minutes in my case) is reset whenever I hit Shift+Ctrl+S (i.e. when a manual recovery save takes place).

Regarding Clear local cache, it is probably not something I would use regularly but, still, it's generally a good idea to understand what such a scary-sounding command does (deletes/clears) before invoking it, or at least what problem it solves.

Question 6 is the same as question 3. Embarrassing. It happens some times.

All other points noted and understood. Regarding leftover .backup files in the CrashRecovery folder, it would be great if you get a conclusive answer from the devs, just to be sure it's not a bug.

The design in question was Novation Launchpad S. I was working on v4 and decided it was time to save a new version when Fusion 360 started acting strange. The time stamps you see there correspond to Beijing time because I normally live in China, forgot to change my system clock time zone (I'm in Spain for Christmas). The incident happened in the vicinity of the 20171226T163223 event (probably after it), maybe you can see something unusual. I definitely attempted to up-version my design because I remember typing in the version description. Obviously it didn't work, which is OK, it's the fact that automatic recovery save didn't work that worries me. I'll definitely do some tests (deliberately force-quitting) to see if I can cause this to happen consistently. I've just looked through the Windows Event Viewer and there are no errors between the time my computer resumed from sleep this morning and the time I forced shut down, which was immediately after I tried to save Novation Launchpad S v5.

Thanks!

[ahsan.autodesk]

Hi @Scoox,

"Clear user cache data" should NOT delete any files in the Crash Recovery Folder. Nor will it delete anything in the F or the Q folders. It cleans up things related to the Side panel and some other cloud cache.

Any backup files left over in the CrashRecovery folder should ideally show up in the "Recover Documents" menu - as long as the AutoSavedFileList.xml exists. In some situations, this xml file doesn't exist. You can ignore (or delete) any "leaking" backup files in that case.

The files under the F folder are the actual Offline cache of anything that you open or edit in Fusion. These get cleaned up automatically on a periodic basis, and can be controlled by the user setting "Offline cache time period" under the General UI settings.

From your first message, it appears that you'd done a normal save (Ctrl-S) of the document before force-quitting the app. When this happens, we delete any crash recovery files for that document. That's why you didn't see any items in the Recover Documents menu. So, it doesn't look like you were seeing an auto-save issue at all. In fact, from your log files, I can see that auto-save is occurring regularly without any problems.

When you force-quit, the document you'd saved probably did not get uploaded to the cloud. But it is still saved on disk, under the F\W.login folder, as well as under the Q folder. Later, when you restart Fusion, we'll pick up the file from the Q folder, and upload it as a new version to the Cloud.

If you were to open this file from the same machine before it has been uploaded to the Cloud, we'll still pick up the latest version from the F\W.login folder. So, you should technically be able to work with the latest saved version of your file.

Between James and I, we hope we've addressed all your queries.
Thanks and best regards,
Ahsan (Fusion 360 Architect)

[arekm]

What about scenario where auto save is enabled and set to 5 minutes, project is drawn for 30 minut but never saved and:

a) computer crashes/power goes off.

b) computer tries to reboot the system (and possibly) closes or kills the apps due. Succeeds.

Should auto save create a copy? Since I looked at mentioned folders and found no auto saved files for my lost, unsaved project (OS: macos sequoia).

I also made a test. In "Untitled" I've drawn some sketch at ~22:40 and left computer for 20 minutes without doing any manual save and found no autosaved files after that. Huh, why? Such "auto save" is half baked.

command shows few latest files sorted by modification time:

arekm@aarm Autodesk Fusion 360 % date; pwd; find . -type f -printf "%T@ %p\n" | sort -rn | awk '{print $2, " ---- ", strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z", $1)}' | head -n 20

Mon Dec  9 23:00:14 CET 2024
/Users/arekm/Library/Application Support/Autodesk/Autodesk Fusion 360
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/logs/AppLogFile20241209T223002.log  ----  2024-12-09 23:00:05 CET
./Electron/WebCache/ControlPanel/History-journal  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:53 CET
./Electron/WebCache/User/History-journal  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:53 CET
./Electron/WebCache/PackageEditor/History-journal  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:53 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/NsCloudBrowserCache_maven2.dat  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:20 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/SavedNotifications.json  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:18 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/W.login/M/index.xml  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:10 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/OfflineCache.xml  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:08 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/flags.json  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:07 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/PIM.login/BUrQjvXjrY7FNyOIvR8i4J_L2C_v6.sql-wal  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:07 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/PIM.login/BUrQjvXjrY7FNyOIvR8i4J_L2C_v6.sql-shm  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:06 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/sessioncache  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:05 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/JSLoadedScriptsinfo  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:04 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/GraphicsCardInfo.xml  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:03 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/P.login/jobs.json.lck  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:03 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/session.dat  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:01 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/_analytic-workflows.json  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:01 CET
./DTSPL3HLK4GY/_analytic-counters.json  ----  2024-12-09 22:30:01 CET
./SafeModeCounter.json  ----  2024-12-09 22:29:54 CET
./Fabrication/Resources/themes/weave-default/add-folder/24x24.png  ----  2024-12-09 22:29:53 CET

[ahsan.autodesk]

Hi @arekm,

Can you please share your diagnostics logs? Specifically, the log file mentioned here: 

DTSPL3HLK4GY/logs/AppLogFile20241209T223002.log

My suspicion is that Auto-save didn't get triggered because there was an active command running. There should've been a warning after 10 minutes or so. The App log file will help validate that.
Thx and regards

[arekm]

DTSPL3HLK4GY/logs/AppLogFile20241209T223002.log attached. I left fusion app running all night. Still no save. No displayed warnings

[ahsan.autodesk]

You're right. There's nothing in the App log either. I'll forward your issue to the team that is currently looking at Auto-save. Hopefully, they can figure something out.

They'll likely need the full diagnostics logs. Can you please send that across in advance?

Thx for your help

[arekm]

I hope these don't contain anything "private" and are safe to post on the forum (did a quick look but...).

Attached. (Edit: and deleted after team got it)

[Scoox]

See also @James.Youmatz reply above.

[ahsan.autodesk]

Thanks for the full diagnostics files @arekm.
I've downloaded it and will be sharing it with the team that is looking into it.

You may delete the attachment if you want.

Thx again