All work from the past few days or so undone

[LoganAC34]

I have a really weird and strange issue I'm having. I had this project I've been working on for a few days. Today, I saved my drawing and went to lunch, only to return to see all the progress I have done in the past few days was undone. I never closed the file and only about 30min went by since I last worked on it with everything there. Anyone have any clue how to get my work back? Any and all help is appreciated.

Some info that I think might be pertinent:

• Revit 2020
• Rough file size right now is 23,700 KB
• The file was saved on a networked drive
• It was NOT a shared Revit model. My company does not use shared models since only one person ever works on a file at a time.
• I was the creator of the file that I started from a template file I made
• It appears that everything lost was everything I did after I last opened the file which was a few days ago. (my running theory is the file was never saving when I clicked save)
• I saved every 30min or so (it was not me forgetting to save)
• I still have not closed the file.
• I still have all of the undo history (2,936 actions to undo)
• I have tried undoing all and redoing, but still nothing.
• I'm aware of the journal file in "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2020\Journals". I found 3 files with the same name as my project. I opened all three and they appear exactly the same as each other (though have slightly different file sizes +/- 10kb)
• I found "revittemp" and "revitsavetemp" .tmp files in my Temp folder at "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp\<some random folder name>". No idea what they do or if they could be of use.
• I had two Revit program instances open. One was referencing another model while the other was the one I was actually working in.
• I looked at a previous version of the file (right clicking the file > Previous Versions) and opening a version from sometime yesterday. It has some of the work I did in it, but since it was a day ago, I'm still missing a few hours of work. If I open the latest previous version, all the progress is still gone. The file size between the current and previous version is different indicating to me that I lost the work that was done in-between. The file size of the previous version with some work is 27.6 MB, while the current file that has all work lost is 23.0 MB. I would still like to see if I could recover a more recent version if possible, or at least solve the mystery of how this happened in the first place.

To anyone reading this with the same issue, or even people that want to take protection against this happening to them, I added "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\" to my windows backup file paths. You can find this by going to windows settings > Updates & Security > Backup > More options under the on/off switch. It may take a few seconds, but then it will show you a big plus sign under "Backup these folders" where you can add the path.

[barthbradley]

HEY| This might be the prefect situation to try rebuilding a dead project from the Journal File. I've never tried it myself,  but I saw an awesome demonstration of it at AU Vegas  a couple of  year ago.  Google it! Let is know how it goes.  

Fingers Crossed for you and following...

[LoganAC34]

I just looked into this and it doesn't appear to be able to help me in this scenario. From what I read, you can't loose focus on the Revit program for the journal file to work, which I surly have done multiple times. Also, when I tried to use the journal file and it gave me an error saying my file was "ridiculously" big and failed to run. I could probably delete some of the lines in the journal file since I was able to recover a more recent file, but I wouldn't even know were to start, and it would probably take me longer to figure out than just redoing the work. 

I thank you so much for showing me this. I had no idea this was possible, and now I have this knowledge for next time I might need it. This issue still scares me if it can happen anytime without notice. Unless anyone can help me figure out what caused it in the first place, I guess I'll just be closing out of my files more often and maybe creating manual backups. 

[mgreenertQQNZT]

Did anyone find a solution to this? I'm having the same problem, standalone model - I hit save and it deleted hours of progress even though I had saved multiple times in the last several hours. It didn't delete model elements however, but deleted sheet annotations and schedule objects (in this case it deleted all recently created rooms and their parameters). Going back didn't do anything, it was as if those elements never existed in the model. 

[RSomppi]

I see something quite glaring in the OP.

"It appears that everything lost was everything I did after I last opened the file which was a few days ago."

Revit needs to be closed once in a while. The temporary memory needs to be cleared or it gets too full. Your mileage may vary as to how long and/or how important it is. Once a day at a minimum. I usually do it at lunch time and completely shut down daily.

[LoganAC34]

I can't image that would be the issue, and I wouldn't say that its "glaring" to keep a project open for multiple days...  In my opinion, restarting your computer daily seems a bit overkill - I restart at the end of every week. Also, neither my RAM or SSD space get anywhere near full ever.

For that to be the issue, why would it revert back to the state when I opened the file and not a day/few hours later when you suggest the issue would start occurring?

I'm thinking this either a configuration issue (with PC/network), or a random fluke glitch. 

[RSomppi]

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@LoganAC34 wrote:

I can't image that would be the issue, and I wouldn't say that its "glaring" to keep a project open for multiple days...

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According to my training, it's essential to close and reopen projects periodically to clear temp files and cache. Midday used to be the rule if you were on the same project all day. 

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@LoganAC34 wrote:

In my opinion, restarting your computer daily seems a bit overkill - I restart at the end of every week.

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Old habits die hard. Not only that, it is required by many IT departments. It's for different reasons for IT but a win/win for me. Overkill, maybe, but better safe than sorry. It's one less thing that I have to consider when things go awry. It might not be as necessary with a powerhouse computer but it still needs to be done now and then. How else the computer is used along with Revit can have bearing on how vital this is also. It all adds up. If your going to be away from the computer, what is the harm in doing it.

[ToanDN]

I am guilty of keeping multiple Revit files open for weeks, even months (only close all non-active views, sync, and turn off monitors when leaving the office).

[LoganAC34]

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@RSomppi wrote:
If your going to be away from the computer, what is the harm in doing it.

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Well, for one, its really inconvenient to restart daily as I frequently have many PDFs, files, and programs open, and remembering everything and navigating to it after restarting is tedious. But of course, if restarting fixes the bigger issue of loosing hours/days of work, its obviously worth it.

I get that restarting on a regular basis is a good idea, just that daily seems too often. Other than if you count this issue, I haven't had any issues with weekly restarts. Also, I feel like saying "just restart more often" isn't really an acceptable answer to this issue, because one, then we could just use that for every issue that we don't understand right away and never get to the real answer, and second, with how rare this issue seems to happen, we can't definitively say if this did or did not fix the issue.

[RSomppi]

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@LoganAC34 wrote:
Well, for one, its really inconvenient to restart daily as I frequently have many PDFs, files, and programs open, and remembering everything and navigating to it after restarting is tedious.

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Then don't go looking for a job with good IT practices as they require machines to be shut down daily and for very good reason.

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@LoganAC34 wrote:
 Also, I feel like saying "just restart more often" isn't really an acceptable answer to this issue, because one, then we could just use that for every issue that we don't understand right away and never get to the real answer, and second, with how rare this issue seems to happen, we can't definitively say if this did or did not fix the issue.

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I hear this stuff all the time. People want some sort of substantiation or they won't do it. Unfortunately, when something does happen, it's always at the worst time (not that there is never a good time). At that point, you're probably going to restart anyway. So, instead of using it as an attempt to fix problems, why not do it more often to prevent such things and then you will have no doubt. It's like these people in nice neighborhoods who get their cars robbed because they left valuables in them and the doors unlocked. They never thought it would happen to them until it does.

Personally, I take precautions to prevent losing work because I hate losing work, especially if it's something that I could have prevented. A little inconvenience to prevent redoing work is worth it to me. But hey, that's just me.

[mgreenertQQNZT]

I don't know that not restarting Revit is the issue here, I close and restart Revit every day, and I had a very similar issue with a file that I had open for about half a day. 

[RSomppi]

I don't know for sure and there is no way to tell but it cannot be ruled out because someone (that restarts regularly) else is experiencing something similar.

[LoganAC34]

@RSomppi wrote:

So, instead of using it as an attempt to fix problems, why not do it more often to prevent such things and then you will have no doubt.

@RSomppi wrote:

I don't know for sure and there is no way to tell but it cannot be ruled out because someone (that restarts regularly) else is experiencing something similar.

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Isn't that a good indication though that its not the issue? They restart daily already and it still happened... so should they restart twice a day? 

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@RSomppi wrote:

I hear this stuff all the time. People want some sort of substantiation or they won't do it. 

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Yes, people usually don't like following things blindly.

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@RSomppi wrote:

Personally, I take precautions to prevent losing work because I hate losing work, especially if it's something that I could have prevented.

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I do to. I just find it easier and just as good to restart Revit every once in a while instead of my computer, and making temporary backups of the file.

At this point it is useless to keep discussing about restarting since I understand your point and you can't definitively say it will solve the problem.

[LoganAC34]

Posting back on an update related to this issue.

A colleague of mine had a similar issue today. They saved and closed Revit at the end of the day yesterday, then today they opened Revit and their project to work on it. They were working for about 2 hours when all of the sudden, their stair was gone - just the stair. They were working on one view, then went to another view to find the stair was gone after they switched views - it was there on the previous view. They didn't accidently delete it because they undid everything they could and their stair never came back. What's weirder is that we opened a previous backup save from an hour ago and the stair still wasn't there. Luckily we could open a save from yesterday and copy the stair back into the current file.