Does Affinity Designer have an auto save feature?

[GARoss]

I'm hoping but I don't see it if there is. Does Affinity Designer have an auto save feature? If it not, I committed the Cardinal Sin of not saving my work earlier. After an hour of work I wanted to take a break & when "saving" AF Windows Beta crashed. Bummer! :wacko:

[Mark Ingram]

Yes, by default it saves every 5 minutes, but you can change that in Preferences. Did you get a crash reference when you re-started the application?

[GARoss]

Yes, by default it saves every 5 minutes, but you can change that in Preferences. Did you get a crash reference when you re-started the application?

No reference. Reopened to previous project, not the unsaved work.

I just started from scratch again but in the future does AF only save to named projects or would AF reopen to the unsaved project?

[Mark Ingram]

The autosave works with unsaved files as well as saved filed. It should prompt you to restore the autosave if the application crashed. If it didn't, this is a bug that needs looking at (assuming you worked for more than 5 minutes in the previous file).

[GARoss]

The autosave works with unsaved files as well as saved filed. It should prompt you to restore the autosave if the application crashed. If it didn't, this is a bug that needs looking at (assuming you worked for more than 5 minutes in the previous file).

Thanks Mark. Everything happen quickly. I worked on my project for at least an hour before I opened "Save As", typed a title in, then entered to save. AF seemed to hesitate much longer than I ever recall so I tried to close the "Save As" window to try again but the entire program crashed. When I reopened AF my previous project opened, not the unsaved project. There were no "error" windows or warnings. This was my first work with AF Beta v18.

 

Perhaps I should see if this crash repeated before calling it a bug. 

[Mark Ingram]

You should definitely have had an autosave file that you could have reverted back to. That sounds like a bug. Just out of interest, can you check your autosave interval for me? Go to Edit | Preferences | Performance, and look at the "File Recovery Interval".

[GARoss]

You should definitely have had an autosave file that you could have reverted back to. That sounds like a bug. Just out of interest, can you check your autosave interval for me? Go to Edit | Preferences | Performance, and look at the "File Recovery Interval".

"File Recovery Interval" default set 300 seconds (5 minutes) as you have said. Searching my PC for an untitled .afdesign file.

 

Mark, this must be a user error.

 

Found no untitled .afdesign file. Seems like some sort of untitled .afdesign file would be present. Found nothing on my backup drive as well. Sorry.

[AdamStanislav]

Yes, by default it saves every 5 minutes

 

Where does it save them to? And under what name?

[Alfred]

Have a look in your %AppData%\Affinity\Designer\1.0 (Beta)\autosave folder. The files that I found in mine seem to have timestamp names like '20160927192642.autosave'.

[AdamStanislav]

Have a look in your %AppData%\Affinity\Designer\1.0 (Beta)\autosave folder. The files that I found in mine seem to have timestamp names like '20160927192642.autosave'.

 

Thanks! I see I had four in there without ever knowing about them.

[Alfred]

Thanks! I see I had four in there without ever knowing about them.

 

You're welcome, Adam. I also had four when I first looked earlier, but I now have five!

[AdamStanislav]

I noticed that when I drag an autosave file to AD, it opens fine. And when I click to close it, it asks me whether I want to save it. When I say no (they were old), it closes the file and deletes it from the autosave directory.

[Mark Ingram]

You should have been prompted to open those files the next time you start Designer. On a clean close of the application, it should remove those old autosaves.

[Alfred]

I've just closed AD, declining to save the *.autosave file and another modified file that I had open, and only the most recent (0 KB) autosave has been removed: the other four (including one from four days ago and another from more than two weeks ago) are still there.

[AdamStanislav]

I've just closed AD, declining to save the *.autosave file and another modified file that I had open, and only the most recent (0 KB) autosave has been removed: the other four (including one from four days ago and another from more than two weeks ago) are still there.

 

I was only opening them one at a time, always opening the most recent one left. So that’s consistent with your experience.  :)

[AdamStanislav]

You should have been prompted to open those files the next time you start Designer. On a clean close of the application, it should remove those old autosaves.

 

Well, I wasn’t prompted. And they were not removed until I found them there today.

[GARoss]

Have a look in your %AppData%\Affinity\Designer\1.0 (Beta)\autosave folder. The files that I found in mine seem to have timestamp names like '20160927192642.autosave'.

Hi Alfred, I found a few autosaves but they were from yesterdays (09/27) work, not the day before when I had issues (09/26). Do these only last 24 hours or some sort of time limit?

[Alfred]

Hi Alfred, I found a few autosaves but they were from yesterdays (09/27) work, not the day before when I had issues (09/26). Do these only last 24 hours or some sort of time limit?

 

As I said in my reply to Mark last night, I found one from a few days ago and another from more than two weeks ago. I don't know what determines whether they're either removed or not even created in the first place.

[Mark Ingram]

They should be removed after the next successful run. You should be prompted to either restore or discard these autosaves (so in theory, after a successful run, that directory should be empty).

[Alfred]

Well, the theory sort of works in practice! My most recent ones are gone now, but I still have two left from mid-August.

[Mark Ingram]

There was a bug a while ago that led to autosave files not being removed, which has since been fixed, so it would be good to delete those old files, and see if any autosave files are left in the future.

[Alfred]

I'm happy to leave those two files there, if it won't mess up anything else. :)

[uncle808us]

On 9/27/2016 at 3:29 PM, Alfred said:

Have a look in your %AppData%\Affinity\Designer\1.0 (Beta)\autosave folder. The files that I found in mine seem to have timestamp names like '20160927192642.autosave'.

What is this path on Mac OSX10.11.6? Thanks

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, uncle808us said:

What is this path on Mac OSX10.11.6? Thanks

Try the folder mentioned here:

 

[uncle808us]

I only had one file there dated 2016?? NOTHING FROM TODAY after you save the file does the backup go away?

If anyone knows.