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Hello Forum, this is my first post so please be easy on me.

 

I just witnessed, after 2 hours of painting, my program force closing. I didn't save my work (I simply forgot it, really stupid I know) and after reopening the program I recovered my file but it was just one layer in there and everything was like when I just started my project. I went into the preferences and checked the File Recovery Interval which was set to 5 mins. so I have to ask:

Do you have to activate something else in turn to make the file recovery interval work?

I also started a new project and set the interval to 30 sec. and drew a line on my picture and waited 30 seconds to see if the program would save on its own after the time had passed but nothing happened.

 

I'm very upset that my work is now gone and so I want to know what I did wrong so this won't happen anymore.

Maybe there's even a way to restore my original file that I simply dont know? :huh:

 

Greetings, ElectroPug.

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I also started a new project and set the interval to 30 sec. and drew a line on my picture and waited 30 seconds to see if the program would save on its own after the time had passed but nothing happened.

 

I don't know why the recovered file did not have more of your work in it, but for the above the feature is not an auto-save in the conventional sense -- it just keeps a temporary backup file that is only available if the application crashes. So you won't see anything obvious happening, & unless the app crashes, that file will be deleted when the document is closed, whether or not any changes to it has been saved by the user.

 

The temporary file is stored in the /Users/{your user name}/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Application Support/autosave folder (or the correspondingly named folder for Affinity Photo or for the betas if you are using them). If you open a Finder window to that folder, you should see the file in it while you are working on a document, & it vanishing when you close that document. (It will have a long numeric name & an ".autosave" extension.)

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Thanks for your reply!
 

I just read another thread from another user (I think it was about a year old) who had the same exact problem with the two hours of work gone.

In order for the "recovery file" to work or being created, do you maybe have to save the project at least once? Because I did not save at all. (Stupid I know.)

 

 

Additionally, I'd like to provide an error log for the developers if this happens again, is there a way to create one?

 

Greetings, ElectroPug.

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As I understand it, you do not need to save the file (or changes to an existing one). But it only works if the application crashes; in other words if it quits abnormally before it can delete the .autosave file.

 

If the app crashes, there should be a file created in the /Users/{your user name}/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports folder. You can easily find & view this file using the Console app (in the Applications/Utilities folder). Look for it in the sidebar of that app in the "User Diagnostic Reports" subheading of the "DIAGNOSTICS AND USAGE INFORMATION" section. It will be obvious which one it is from the file's name, which will include the app name & a date-time stamp.

 

The Console app includes in its menu bar "Reveal in Finder" & "Mail" options for the individual logs it displays, making it easy to attach the crash log file to an email or open it with another app like say TextEdit if you want to copy just a part of it to a post.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Thanks again for your reply!

 


As I understand it, you do not need to save the file (or changes to an existing one). But it only works if the application crashes; in other words if it quits abnormally before it can delete the .autosave file.

 

 

 

Well the program did crash, at least I think so because it just ended without any sort of message. I just tried crashing the program manually and it seems to save the recovery files correctly when I saved the project once. I just force closed AD myself through

CMD+ALT+ESC, worked this time.
 

 

If the app crashes, there should be a file created in the /Users/{your user name}/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports folder. You can easily find & view this file using the Console app (in the Applications/Utilities folder). Look for it in the sidebar of that app in the "User Diagnostic Reports" subheading of the "DIAGNOSTICS AND USAGE INFORMATION" section. It will be obvious which one it is from the file's name, which will include the app name & a date-time stamp.

 

 

To my surprise I didn't find an error log of AD, just some old ones from Firefox and other programs. Seems kind of weird to me since I'm about 90% sure that the program crashed.

 

Regards, ElectroPug.

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Error logs are eventually purged to keep them from using up too much file space, but unless the crash occurred at least a week ago (& sometimes much longer than that) it should be there, at least if the app actually crashed & it occurred in some way that the OS could detect it. That usually involves an 'uncaught exception' like the app calling an invalid address or it not responding to system calls.

 

When that kind of event occurs, the OS should display a message that the app quit unexpectedly. If it did not, it is possible that a system level error occurred (as opposed to an application level error) but that doesn't seem very likely unless you have been seeing other unusual behavior not directly related to Affinity or any other specific app.

 

That said, one time "glitches" can occasionally occur for various reasons. Not to belabor a point you are already all too painfully aware of, because of that possibility it is important not just to save your work frequently but also to back it up as often as is needed to guard against system crashes, hardware failures, & the unfailing application of Murphy's Law at the worst possible time.

 

One way to do this is with Time Machine. With one (or more) TM backup drives attached to your Mac, you can get automatic backups of every change to your files made on an hourly basis, but you can also use the Time Machine menu bar "Back Up Now" item to force a backup at any time. Since Time Machine only adds changed files to each new time-stamped backup (even though it doesn't look that way in Finder), doing this will not eat up much backup disk space, & it is cheap insurance against disasters ... as long as you remember to do it.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Alright, thanks for your help!
I guess I'll just be more careful now and hope the program doesn't quit out of the blue again.

I checked again and there is no error log (It happened a few hours ago and I only have about 7 error logs altogether).

So as you said I would assume it was an unfortunate glitch and I will definitely save more often now.

Thank you very much!

 

Regards, ElectroPug.

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  • 2 years later...
On 5/26/2016 at 7:27 AM, ElectroPug said:

Alright, thanks for your help!
I guess I'll just be more careful now and hope the program doesn't quit out of the blue again.

I checked again and there is no error log (It happened a few hours ago and I only have about 7 error logs altogether).

So as you said I would assume it was an unfortunate glitch and I will definitely save more often now.

Thank you very much!

 

Regards, ElectroPug.

It is a good practice to save files frequently, and I often do this. Since my computer suddenly blacked out, then I lost the data that took me a lot of time to complete. If you are experiencing the same thing in the future, I would suggest that you immediately use a data recovery tool like any recovery to recover the data. This is how I retrieved the data.

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On 3/22/2019 at 10:45 AM, susangreen said:

It is a good practice to save files frequently, and I often do this. Since my computer suddenly blacked out, then I lost the data that took me a lot of time to complete. If you are experiencing the same thing in the future, I would suggest that you immediately use a data recovery tool like any recovery to recover the data. This is how I retrieved the data.

 

Oh, easeUS is not bad.

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