PLA extension problem

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have a problem with pla extension. I was drawing all night long in one archicad file, which was originally saved as pla. And then when i finished and pressed save as (same name) file, pla, i was offered "overwrite", i clicked yes. And it seemed saved. Then one second after i pressed "x" to exit, and it was offered do you wanna save changes, i pressed no, since one second before i already did the overwriting. However i figured that nothing was saved.
It seems that pla doesnt work. Why?
Please help,

Thanks.

[Eduardo Rolon]

If I understood correctly;
• PLA is Archicad's archive format and it should be used only at the end of the project or after finishing a specific phase. This format basically gathers all the objects that are part of the project and merges them into one file. It should not be used as the regular day to day work format.
• The regular day to day extension is PLN and the reason it asked you to save again must have been that you did a "Save-AS" and chose PLA (this creates a new file but does not save the regular PLN) then you closed the regular PLN file and AC asked to save it and you said no loosing all the work on that version of the file.
• At least you will be able to open the PLA file and save it without losing the work, save it as PLN and keep working.

[Anonymous]

Hello ejrolon,

Thank you for your answer.
Yes i thought i should save as pla, cause of some libraries i had imported. But anyway when i reopened that pla file, there was none of my "new" drawings saved in it. It seems it never did the overwriting, when i did save as, and used the same name as the one i was drawing in.
I guess i wanted to ask if there is maybe some back up archicad file that could have been saved as some step before i clicked on "no" and exited the file and so lost all of it.

Thanks a lot.

[Barry Kelly]

Are you sure you are opening the correct PLA file?
Maybe you have saved it in different locations and only think you have the correct one (I know I have done this).
Saving as a PLA and overwriting should have saved your changes - I can't understand why it didn't unless as I say you saved in one location but are looking in another.

As Eduardo mentioned saving as a PLA does not save the PLN which is why you were prompted to save your changes on closing.
It is wise NEVER to ignore that message unless you know you definitely don't want to save.
If in any doubt save it anyway or at worst cancel and 'save as' (check the file type is set to PLN) and save it in another location and/or different name so at least you know you have the latest changes somewhere.

Once you have saved as a PLN then every save from then on will create a backup file BPN (unless you turn the default setting of in the Work Environment).
What you save will become the current PLN and what was the old PLN will become the BPN - which can be opened just like a PLN file.
Saving as a PLA does not give the option to create backups.

Barry.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Items to try;
• If you saved over a PLN with the PLA option it would/should not overwrite it. There should be another file with the PLA extension with the same name in the same place. Open AC and in the dialog box for "File Types" select "All" to see if it is there.
• Check to see if there is a BPN file in the same location it might have the information though if you already opened the PLN for a second time it might still be there.
• If you are using dropbox or other backup service like "Time Machine" you might be able to resurrect the previous BPN and try again.

[Anonymous]

Believe it or not Barry, it was true in my case too
I did save it in another location apparently. I just searched for the name and found few more files, and of course the one with all the drawings in it. I will pay attention and save pln from now on.

Thanks for the help!

[Barry Kelly]

Glad you found it.

Barry.