Crash and loss of work in Publisher 2.1.0

[philipt18]

I had Publisher 2.1.0 crash, and I lost several days of work. I have two questions.

1) Is there a way to recover what was lost? Right now my document is missing everything I added in the last couple of days.

2) Is there no auto-save in Publisher? If there is, how does one turn it on?

[philipt18]

I've been trying to see if I can find backups in my Time Machine backups, but they're not there. Since ™ backs up every five minutes, that means that Publisher doesn't change a file you're working on until you save it? Otherwise I would think ™ would have copied it.

[philipt18]

I've been considering moving my book into the new Book format, where I separate each chapter into it's own document, and enclose them in a Book document. Now I'm wondering if this is a good idea. Would each chapter document need to be saved separately? There are over 50 chapters in this book. Without some kind of autosave this seems problematic.

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, philipt18 said:

I've been trying to see if I can find backups in my Time Machine backups, but they're not there. Since TM backs up every five minutes, that means that Publisher doesn't change a file you're working on until you save it? Otherwise I would think TM would have copied it.

Actually, in standard mode Time Machine backs up every hour. You are right for the rest: as long as the modifications are not saved, the file on disk is not modified, hence not copied by Time Machine. 

I don't know if there are temporary files which could contain any further state of your work. 

[philipt18]

I would kill for a version only an hour before the crash. In any case, I've been working to restore what was lost, so that's not my main concern now. What I want to make sure is that this doesn't happen again. Auto-save would be nice. If there isn't such an option, then suggestions (other than save often) on how to make sure this doesn't happen would be great.

[DWright]

Affinity Publisher has a file recovery option in the Setting and by default it saves temporary data for currently open documents every 15 minutes, allowing a document restore to be offered  when the app is reopened after a crash, unfortunately if you do not select this option when the app restarts the temporary data is overwritten by the current opened document 

[philipt18]

Unfortunatwely @DWright for whatever reason, I was not offered that option, and nothing was recovered. This is why Affinity should offer Auto-Save. This would both help save data, but would also make the files visible to backup software like Time Machine to back up versions as well.

[Oufti]

5 hours ago, DWright said:

unfortunately if you do not select this option when the app restarts the temporary data is overwritten by the current opened document 

4 hours ago, philipt18 said:

Unfortunatwely @DWright for whatever reason, I was not offered that option, and nothing was recovered. This is why Affinity should offer Auto-Save. This would both help save data, but would also make the files visible to backup software like Time Machine to back up versions as well.

 

I am not sure if you could still find something therein but you could try to look, with Time Machine, in the folder where this automatic copy was saved: 

• Go in the Finder,
• Open your user library (By default, this is hidden. To display it, click on the Go menu while holding down the Option/Alt key)
• Navigate to the folder: /Users/~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher 2/autosave/ (Alternatively, you can directly copy this path in the "Go to the folder…" item of the Finder's Go menu)
• That window being still selected, launch Time Machine via the menu bar et go back in time until you see something in this folder 
• If you see a file inside this folder, it will be named according to when it was created: 
  e.g. /Users/admin/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher 2/autosave/20230618210159.autosave
• Restore it and relaunch Publisher. 

 

[philipt18]

I just had another crash. This time thankfully I was offered to recover the file. I have the crash log. Is there someplace I should send it?

[wey_lan]

Hi there,

I'm having the same recurring issue. Whenever I open a basic layout doc in Publisher (with no images) the program crashes. I've attached the zipped report for reference. I am not using any third party plugins or kits. Thus far, the program never recovers the file.

Thanks!

 

Affinity Report.docx