File Recovery Photo v2.3.1 Mac

[Ldina]

I'm not having any success recovering a file after AP v2.3.1 crashed. I'm on a 2017 MacBook Pro, Ventura. 

I never saved the file, but I had it open for at least an hour. I usually save more often, but I was experimenting with some techniques, so I didn't save it at all this time. I started with a DNG RAW file, opened it in the Develop Persona (RAW Layer linked), then did a lot of work on it in the Photo Persona. I have my recovery time in Settings set to 300 seconds, but I couldn't find any record that autosave ever saved my unnamed file anywhere. I looked in ~/library/application support/affinity photo 2/autosave. Nothing is listed there from today..

When relaunching AP, it asked if I wanted to recover the file and I said Yes. It opened the original DNG RAW file in the Develop Persona, which was useless to me. Shouldn't autosave save a copy every 300 seconds, per my AP Settings (preferences)?

Is there any way to recover this file? If so, where do I look and how?

Thanks.

[walt.farrell]

If the Autosave folder is empty, you're out of luck. I have no idea why it didn't save more often.

[Ldina]

Thanks, Walt.

Hmmmm....why isn't "Autosave" saving? Am I doing something wrong? Does the file have to be saved before autosave kicks in? Do Mac preferences need to be deleted or updated? What good is an autosave feature if it doesn't...well...Autosave!

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Ldina said:

Does the file have to be saved before autosave kicks in

No. 

What's most puzzling is that it did offer to recover, but had a very downlevel version of the file.

[Ldina]

I've actually had this happen before with RAW files opened in the Develop Persona. If AP crashes, and if I haven't saved it first as an afphoto file, opening a recovery file seems to revert back to the original RAW file and I have to start from scratch in the Develop Persona.

This evening, I opened the same RAW DNG file, but after opening in the Photo Persona, I immediately saved it as an afphoto file. In checking the Autosave folder, I can see that autosave is updating the file's time stamp from time to time while the afphoto file is open in AP. Once I closed down the the file from Photo, that autosave entry is deleted from the autosave folder (which seems correct to me, as the file is now safely saved and closed).

I'm beginning to wonder if you have to first save a file as an afphoto file for autosave to work? I'm not sure. 

[Callum]

7 hours ago, Ldina said:

I've actually had this happen before with RAW files opened in the Develop Persona. If AP crashes, and if I haven't saved it first as an afphoto file, opening a recovery file seems to revert back to the original RAW file and I have to start from scratch in the Develop Persona.

This evening, I opened the same RAW DNG file, but after opening in the Photo Persona, I immediately saved it as an afphoto file. In checking the Autosave folder, I can see that autosave is updating the file's time stamp from time to time while the afphoto file is open in AP. Once I closed down the the file from Photo, that autosave entry is deleted from the autosave folder (which seems correct to me, as the file is now safely saved and closed).

I'm beginning to wonder if you have to first save a file as an afphoto file for autosave to work? I'm not sure. 

Have you adjusted the file recovery interval setting found in your apps performance preferences at all?

[Ldina]

3 hours ago, Callum said:

@Callum Have you adjusted the file recovery interval setting found in your apps performance preferences at all?

Thanks for the response, Callum. Yesterday, after my crash and data loss, I changed the time interval from 300 to 200 seconds.

I tested it quickly this morning. I opened a RAW DNG file in the Develop Persona (RAW layer linked, which is my standard workflow), made a few adjustments, then developed the image. That was at 7:00am. I did a few minor edits in the Photo Persona, waited about 8 minutes, then looked in the ~/library/application support/affinity photo 2/autosave folder. It initially showed a time stamp of 7:00am 8 minutes later, and a very small file size in KB, which I assume just recorded the parametric changes made in the Develop Persona. I made a few more edits in AP, then looked again...the time stamp is still 7:00am and the file size is still small.

In my Finder, I switched to a different file folder, then back to the AP2 autosave folder, and it then showed that AP did autosave with a new time stamp (7:13am) and an appropriate larger file size for a linked RAW file (3.5 MB). Maybe Finder needs to switch folders and return to show the new time stamp and file size? I'm still typing this message and checked Finder again, and it still shows a time stamp of 7:13, even though the time is now 7:30am. Perhaps that is per design, since no more edits have been made while I was typing. I assumed AP would autosave every 200 seconds, even if no changes were made. Just curious is this is expected behavior. I don't care as long as my files are autosaved and recoverable in the event of a crash. 

The above was with an image that I have NEVER saved as an afphoto file (on purpose, for this test). It was an unsaved DNG file, developed and brought into AP for editing. I wanted to see if Autosave is working with a DNG file that was developed, yet unsaved. Seems to be working.

BTW, many of my crashes (which are not all that frequent) occur when I am dragging a standard mask (or a pixel based mask in Erase Mode) from one layer to another. 

That's what I have observed so far. 

[Callum]

I have just checked and I believe our apps will only create an autosave if they detect the document has been modified since the last auto save.

[Ldina]

@Callum 

25 minutes ago, Callum said:

I have just checked and I believe our apps will only create an autosave if they detect the document has been modified since the last auto save.

Thank you. Good to know. 😀

BTW, Finder on Mac OS appears to have a "refresh" issue at times, which is why I had to move to a different folder and back to the AP2 Autosave folder to refresh the time stamp and file size. 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Ldina said:

BTW, Finder on Mac OS appears to have a "refresh" issue at times, which is why I had to move to a different folder and back to the AP2 Autosave folder to refresh the time stamp and file size. 

Yes, at times Finder's file Date Modified times are 'lazily' updated unless you do something to force the refresh. For me, sometimes just toggling Date Modified from oldest to newest & back again or vise versa, or toggling the disclosure triangle of a file's parent folder will do it.

There doesn't seem to be any obvious reason why this sometimes is necessary.

[Ldina]

@R C-R Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely try that. Another thing that seems to work is using Cmd-Shft-A, followed by Cmd-[. Rather irritating, though.

I've found a lot of people with this Finder refresh issue in a Google search. Some "fixes" work, some don't, and it seems to vary by Mac OS release. It's an Apple issue and has been around for some time. I've always wondered why it takes so long for my "Last 30 Days" folder to refresh and list new files (I use an external SSD for storage via my thunderbolt connection).

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Ldina said:

It's an Apple issue and has been around for some time.

Some have speculated that this is because by design Finder waits until no other app is using much CPU time to check for changes in mod dates but I have no idea if this is right or just a wild guess.