Multiple instances crash, I'm only prompted to recover ONE file (v24)

[matjashka]

I always work with multiple instances/sessions of ArchiCAD running on my Mac (almost always Teamwork). Sometimes they all crash at once.
ArchiCAD used to display autosave recovery prompt for every remaining project that could be recovered upon re-open.

ArchiCAD 24 only presents the recovery option once, so I can only recover 1 project. When I open another instance to open another crashed project, it opens with last-saved state without any recovery attempt. By that time, the autosave files are but wiped out. Moreover, it appears to me that in v24 this recovery dialog box is ONLY shown if no other sessions are running. So, if I have one session running after another one crashed, I don't get the option to recover the other session (?).

I wrote to support asking to bring back the way it used to work, but their reply was basically that this feature is non-essential and that each time I can go dig into the temp file folders to see if there's anything I can recover from

How are you handling this problem? How can I review autosave files from within ArchiCAD at any given time and open them for editing?

[Eduardo Rolon]

I actually hate the recovery process as it is now. AFAIK my procedure is that once a session crashes I close all AC instances and then relaunch. This will give a list of all crashes.

[matjashka]

There was a recovery process, it was rough but I knew that I could rely on it 100% and crashes used to be mere inconvenience. Now I actually dread the crashes in case I was too busy to save in time, because there were a few times when I lost hours of fast-paced work and there was nothing on the hard drive to recover from.

Whoever at Graphisoft let this happen, I don't know what they were thinking.
If I understand things correctly, there was some change in underlying technology and now some type of cache file is being written that, according to Support, may or may not be recoverable.

Recovery is still listed under "Data Safety", I feel like it belongs with "Experimental Features".

[Minh Nguyen]

Dear Matt,

Thank you very much for sharing the issue, and I am terribly sorry for the experience!

From our developers, we learned that Archicad periodically saves the current project to its autosave folder and it can be recovered from this folder in case of a crash. There is not just one single, global autosave folder, but every instance of Archicad should have its own. If you start multiple instances of Archicad, you should see that multiple autosave folders are created, with a numbered postfix, like AutoSave-24, AutoSave-24-1, AutoSave-24-2, AutoSave-24-3, and so on. If some, or all of them crash, these folders should still be there and upon opening a new AC, the Startup dialog should list the recovered files from all of these folders in Red.

With that being said, I'm wondering what do you mean by "ArchiCAD 24 only presents the recovery option once, so I can only recover 1 project"? The Startup dialog should list all of the autosave files, and we can select multiple and open all of them at once. Was that what you looking for or did I miss anything? It would be great if you could show us with some screenshots or videos of what happened!

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Best regards,
Minh

[matjashka]

Hi Minh,

The Startup dialog should list all of the autosave files, and we can select multiple and open all of them at once. Was that what you looking for or did I miss anything?

You're correct -- a short while ago (AFTER I wrote the original post) I discovered that I could select more than one file. But that new interface was such a complete departure from what I was used to (opening one crashed file at a time) that it never occurred to me that multiple recovery was possible -- and, in some cases, after I recovered that one project, the others were automatically purged. Now, put yourself in my position of a long-time user who can't figure out why the "new" solution is failing for me. "Gradual redesign" does not apply anymore to critical features?

There is not just one single, global autosave folder, but every instance of Archicad should have its own. (...) If some, or all of them crash, these folders should still be there and upon opening a new AC, the Startup dialog should list the recovered files from all of these folders in Red.

The major UX problem is this: this dialog box is only presented if no other ArchiCAD instances are running. To me, this is a regression from the recovery functionality present in v22 and before (I could launch an instance and get recovery prompt dialog). This may result in wiping out of the folders with cached files (it did for me in some cases).

Solution: make the "startup"/recovery dialog box appear each time I start an instance of ArchiCAD so I can recover without having to shut down each running project. Thank you!

[Minh Nguyen]

Hi Matt,

Thank you for the detailed answer! However, I was unable to fully grasp the situation from your description. I did some tests to see how AC24 reacts with autosave files. Depending on how you start a new instance of Archicad, we have the following situation:

- If you start a new instance of Archicad by clicking on its icon from Start Menu or Desktop, a new startup dialog is opened for each instance. You can choose to recover the files from this step, for each recovery file, or just ignore them.


- If you already started a new file, now you want to open another instance by going to File > New, then check the box Launch a new instance of Archicad, another recovery option will prompt you to choose whether you want to recover any file from the autosave section:


- Even if I go as far as ignoring all recovery options, open the crashed file, then start Archicad again, the autosave file is still offered to me. No autosave is purged.

matjashka wrote:
...
after I recovered that one project, the others were automatically purged
...

Unfortunately, this is something I couldn't reproduce myself. As long as the autosave is kept in this startup dialog (so if you choose not to manually delete them from the dialog), they should not be deleted. As we have never experienced this issue before, I would love to learn how to reproduce it for further investigation. I'm wondering if there is any special workflow that happened before the autosave files were lost?

Best regards,
Minh

[Eduardo Rolon]

Ming looks like that only applies to Windows. I just tried on MacOS and I don't get any of those options. I need to close all AC sessions and relaunch to get the warning or the "Launch Window".
-
Using AC25 BTW.
-
To reproduce:
1. Launch multiple files
2. Force quit one of them after making a change
3. Try any of your options.

[Minh Nguyen]

Hey Eduardo,

Yes, for AC25, the dialog mentioned in my second point does not appear, even on WIndows (but it's there on AC24). I haven't checked on macOS yet, you are right. I will double-check both AC24 and 25 with a mac in the office next week.

Best regards,
Minh

[Minh Nguyen]

Hi Eduardo,

I could confirm that the same dialog should appear on both Windows and macOS, using AC24.
Strangely, today I couldn't reproduce the issue you mentioned on AC25 anymore. The recovery dialog showed up after I select Launch a new instance from File > New. I will report it back if I could reproduce and investigate further.

Best regards,
Minh

[Eduardo Rolon]

Check CMD+O (open using keyboard) it might be that what makes the difference.