AutoSave: where? (Dump, Heap)

[Anonymous]

Yesterday, I was shutting down my ArchiCAD project and it would not close. After some time I got some error message about not having enough room with the words "Dump" and "Heap" which the only choice was OK. I clicked OK and the program finally shut down. When I tried to open the project I got another error message that mentioned something about rebuilding a section. I opened the section that I had been working on only to find that ALL of the 2D elements and text were gone from a section that I have days in developing.
I quickly opened the backup file and was relieved to find that version of my section was still there but was missing the last hour of intense work. I went home feeling badly, regretting having lost the work.
This morning I opened the project and looked in the Work Environment/Data Safety settings to try to look at my settings. I have AutoSave set to Save every 300 seconds, the Suspend AutoSave set to 5 seconds and the location of the AutoSave Folder set to C:\Documents and Settings \ JohnCassel \ Graphisoft.
When I looked in the AutoSaveave folder I see that there are a number of files with a .T extensions. I do not see anything from yesterday.

What are these .T files for? Can I use them to restore files? How?

What should I have done to recover my files after the crash/error message?

What was this Error, Dump Heap caused by? How can I prevent it from Happening?

How can I make my data more safe from crashes like this?

Thanks,
John

[Greg Kmethy]

You have probably received a message: "Not enough room in HeapZone" The heap zone is a dynamically allocated memory area in the RAM of the computer. The error reflects that there was not enough memory space available to finish the operation. This can be caused by:
- insufficient RAM
- insufficient Virtual Memory (RAM and Virtual Memory should add up to 4GB)
- insufficient Disk space (besides the virtual memory page file, the system disk should be able to accommodate ArchiCAD's temporary files, which can add up to 1GB. Have at least 5GB free space on the system partition.)
- memory overwrite (caused by bad memory module, application bug, Gremlins etc...)

Your file was not saved properly, and upon opening the file ArchiCAD detected and deleted a corrupt section database. Therefore you were prompted to open and regenerate that section.

@Global.T is the auto-saved PLN file. Other .T files (like @Sg_-1_15025.T) are the section/detail databases that you have worked with recently. If ArchiCAD crashes, these files remain in the Autosave folder. Upon starting ArchiCAD, it searches for the ArchiCAD.TMP and @Global.T files. If it finds them, you will have the option to restore the file.

You can manually restore the file by:
- copy all the .T files in a backup folder
- Rename @Global.T to project.pln
- Open project.pln in ArchiCAD
- Find the Autosave folder that ArchiCAD has created in your Documents and Settings/user/Graphisoft folder upon opening the file.
- copy the other .T files into this folder
- Now open each section and detail one by one. Their content will be restored from the .T files
- save the project

[Tom Krowka]

I have also had that problem. Lost quite a bit of time. It would be great if GS could automate this process for us.

[Greg Kmethy]

It is automated. As I wrote, upon starting, ArchiCAD seraches for any data that could be recovered, and you get the dialog with the life buoy (ArchiCAD Data Recovery) if there is any data that can be saved. Only when the @Lock.T file is somehow missing, will you need to recover the file manually. This should never happen normally. Nevertheless, if you have lost data, and you don't get the Data Recovery dialog, you might still want to look for the .T files.

[Tom Krowka]

The situation I had recently occured as follows: AC crashed, don't know why. When reopening, received the life buoy dialogue box, said there were sections that needed to be regenerated. The drawing would not open all the way. Opened approx. 75%, then froze up, and had to reboot computer. Never was able to regenerate anything.

Same thing with the .bpn.

At this point I would have to have completed your manual procedure, correct?

The manual procedure is what I'm referring to regards the automation.

[Greg Kmethy]

Tom,

Your file was probably not salvageable. If the file did not open up, then the @Global.T file must have been damaged too.

[Anonymous]

How to restore autosave file in AC15?
Now autosave folder hasn't .T files, but ArchiCAD try to restore crashed project without success - ArchiCAD crash one more time during saving...

[Katalin Takacs]

In case the data recovery dialog appears while you are starting ArchiCAD, the AutoSave files could be found automatically on your computer (the folder location can be checked in Work Environment » Data Safety & Integrity).
If the AutoSave file crashes, it is probably damaged, too, so you can try to back saving the project to ArchiCAD 14 or browse for a Backup Project file (.bpn) file.