topic Re: How to open an auto save file? in Modeling

How to open an auto save file?

Rick Thompson — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:40:42 GMT

(or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

I just had an interesting experience, which brought up something I haven't considered before. I managed to delete about 2 hours of work somehow. (I am on a beta 12, and not the final release.. I think I found a bug:( Anyway, I could not go backwards and undo it, so I was screwed.. basically. I tried to open an auto save file, but could not. Then.. I remembered a bug in stairmaker, so in as few steps as I could, I crashed AC on purpose. I was then able to open AC and prompt the autosave feature, which got me back. If I didn't know how to crash it, I would have really been up poop creek, as someone was waiting on the work to be sent to them right then.

So, in leu of being able to intentionally crash AC, is there away to open an auto save file? If not, I will put it on the wish list. It could be sort of a fail safe mechanism aka Dr, Strangelove.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:58:45 GMT

Hello Rick,
What was your method for crashing Archicad ?
Thanks,
Peter Devlin

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Rick Thompson — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:06:30 GMT

I should be gone in the final release, so it want be of any help. There "was" a bug if you tried to edit a stair and it was selected in elevation.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

__archiben — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:23:39 GMT

you don't have to find a bug in the program to be able to crash it deliberately - you can just force quit it (kill process) like any other badly behaving application: CMD + ALT + ESC

as long as archicad exits without using its own 'quit' process, the autosave data will be there to read the next time around . . . (i've done it myself on more than one occasion! )

~/archiben

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Rick Thompson — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:25:49 GMT

Oh.. force quit will trigger the auto save:) great. I assumed to trigger the auto save dialogue you needed AC internally to end the deal.

thanks

Re: How to open an auto save file?

__archiben — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:28:58 GMT

Rick wrote:
Oh.. force quit will trigger the auto save:) great. I assumed to trigger the auto save dialogue you needed AC internally to end the deal.

looking for autosaved content is a part of its startup routine: i.e. when you launch archicad anytime it looks in the autosave folder. if it finds data there you'll get the file recovery dialogue.

if archicad 'quits' properly, that process cleans out the autosave data so there will be none for it to find on the next startup . . .

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Chazz — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:54:54 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
as long as archicad exits without using its own 'quit' process, the autosave data will be there to read the next time around . . . (i've done it myself on more than one occasion!

Me too.

I also wanted to add that Time Machine is a fantastic addition to the Archicad workflow (though I understand not necessarily in Rick's exact situation). I have in the past reverted to TM backups and have felt so good that it was there. It is fast and convenient and does what it promises.

If you are on a Mac, get Leopard and use TimeMachine. You'll be thankful.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

JaredBanks — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:35:35 GMT

Instead of force quiting you can always just turn off the computer. About once a month, while working and rocking out to my headphones, I tap the power strip and kill the power. The first time I did that... wow was I freaked out. Thank goodness for the autosave!

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Dwight — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:15:54 GMT

Wouldn't the forum be more fun if we all had nicknames like gangsters do?

These nicknames would derive from our avatars or writing:

"Thinks he's funny" Dwight
"HaironFire" Rick
Karl "the Monk"

So, to:

"Flailer" Banks:

Have you moved the power strip out of harm's way, yet?

ie: "the first time i did that" implying that it happened more than once?

Re: How to open an auto save file?

JaredBanks — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:27:33 GMT

It's happened maybe 2-3 times. That I can think of. I moved the power strip once, but geography is against me so there's really no good place to move it to. I'm learning to be more careful with my flailing (drafting-dance or is it draft-dancing?). It's better than a long time ago in an AC 9 180 mb+ teamwork file when a coworker thought he unplugged his power strip, but it was really mine. That was more of a pain...

I just need a laptop.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Rick Thompson — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:48:25 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Wouldn't the forum be more fun if we all had nicknames like gangsters do?
These nicknames would derive from our avatars or writing:

Sounds a bit more Native American..

Dwight... "noface".. "knowface"... more suggestive:)

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Dwight — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:56:50 GMT

JaredBanks wrote:
or is it draft-dancing?).

Didn't they make a movie about that in the eighties where a woman wants to go to ballet school but is stuck in the back room of an architect's sweatshop?

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Dwight — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:39:21 GMT

Rick wrote:
Dwight wrote:
Wouldn't the forum be more fun if we all had nicknames like gangsters do?
These nicknames would derive from our avatars or writing:

Sounds a bit more Native American..

Dwight... "noface".. "knowface"... more suggestive:)

My Native name "Runs like a girl"

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Gerald Hoffman — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:03:54 GMT

You all are getting pretty funny. Must be Friday afternoon. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all meet for a good pint and crack jokes.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Dwight — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:25:26 GMT

Just trying to crack 5000.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Gerald Hoffman — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:31:19 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Just trying to crack 5000.

Ya well I'm just trying to crack 200.

Cheers,

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Dwight — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:33:11 GMT

Go for it Squirrel boy.

Re: How to open an auto save file?

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:17:17 GMT

Yes, but getting back to the subject:

Autosave can be a blessing - but members of our office have found it doesn't always kick on after a restart.

Searching for it manually is a bit of nightmare - under "Library/Support/", or some such. And it's called something like "Global.T".

Question #1: if you have more than one session of Acad open, which one is saving to "Global.T"?

Question #2: why can't the file be called "Mymodel.$$$" or similar? Okay I suppose you'd soon accumulate a number of these, but a little housekeeping would get rid of the trash.

Question #3: wouldn't it be good if you could recover the Autosave model after you stupidly closed without saving? How many of us can say, hand on heart, we've never done that?

Keith

Archicad Ver 11 on Mac OSX 10.4.8

Re: How to open an auto save file?

__archiben — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:04:58 GMT

Keith wrote:
Question #1: if you have more than one session of Acad open, which one is saving to "Global.T"?

i'm guessing they all do. it being 'global' and all. i don't think that the autosave file is actually one file to one project. i have a feeling that it's broken up into parts - and that's what all of the other weird and wonderful file names along side are. maybe 'global' is just telling archicad how to piece them all back together again?

Question #2: why can't the file be called "Mymodel.$$$" or similar? Okay I suppose you'd soon accumulate a number of these, but a little housekeeping would get rid of the trash.

what's the difference? (aside from the fact that you know exactly which project crashed of course). archicad does the housekeeping on quitting so whatever it's called it shouldn't be an issue, right?

Question #3: wouldn't it be good if you could recover the Autosave model after you stupidly closed without saving? How many of us can say, hand on heart, we've never done that?

not often. and quite honestly i'll take my punishment if that's the case. anyone doing that on a regular basis will soon learn to wise up if they have to do all of their work again. call it darwinism.

cheers
~/archiben

Re: How to open an auto save file?

JaredBanks — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:23:28 GMT

And doesn't ArchiCAD always ask you if you'd like to save, if you're quiting with unsaved changes?

Side question. How do people handle backups with .pln files? I'm more familiar with teamwork backups. Right now with solo projects I'm just manually dragging copies of the file onto a back folder on my machine. I'm assuming there's a better/more automated way.