Three days of lost work - need help

[Anonymous]

Hello:
I do all my Archicad work on a single machine which also has BIM Server on it. I realize that if I am the only person doing all the work then BIM Server is not really needed but my goal is to eventually have others involved. Over the last 3 days I have been finalizing a new building design which I plan to present this Wednesday. This morning I open the project and all was fine, both the floor plans and the 3D viewing were as I last saved the project. While I had it open I did some playing around with the library files which caused some of the objects (plants and trees) to disappear and could not undo the damage. To that end I closed down Archicad and when it asked me if I wanted to send the changes made I selected the NO button and Archicad closed. I checked some email and then I launched Archicad again only this time instead the information on the screen (floor plan and 3D) was of a version that was save a month ago and I can't seem to get back to the last correct version that I opened this morning. Using BIM Server Manager I tried to use the rollback option (saving the result as a new project) but that didn't work. I tried the method of stopping the server and open the project offline using the "Cached" file but unfortunately the cached file was the same as the one that was 1 month old. Up until today things have worked fine. When I am designing a building I always perform a save operation approx. every 30 minutes. The when I close Archicad if it asks me to send and save any changes I select yes. It should be noted that Archicad doesn't always ask this. My assumption was that when I was working "Online" that when I SAVED the project it automatically sent any and all changes that were made during the session. Based on my current situation I now believe that that is not the case (yes/no). As I don't want to miss my deadline of this Wednesday I would like to know if anyone knows how to get me back to where I was before this problem showed up. I know that each project has 5 files, 2 logs (event and project) and 3 data bases (project.db, property.db and state.db) that the server uses to open the project and place the correct information on the screen. Unfortunately I don't have the capability to open the data base files but if the system works as I think it might it could be possible that all of the information that was in the project before this issue occurred is still there in the data base files. If that is true I would think it would be possible to retrieve the desired data. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm hoping big time. Thanks in advance.

[Link]

Saving your teamwork file, just saves the local copy. It doesn't send the changes back to the teamwork file on your BIM Server. So the project on the server will only have the information from when you last sent your changes to it.

It may be a good idea to join the project as another (temporary) user and see what the latest iteration is. You could try this from the same computer, but use another instance of ArchiCAD. If it looks up to date using the other user, then you could simply reload the project from the server, using your usual user log in.

If not, then it's time to start looking at your backups. If Rollback didn't work you could look at downloading the BIM Project backup and re-importing it to your server. Or open up a pln backup and re-sharing it.

In any case, I'd make a copy of the default project folder while you were doing this, just in case you need to get tech support from Graphisoft. You can find the path in your BIM Server Control Center via the Preferences button.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Hello Link:

I tried the method using the second instance of Archicad but it opens the project as the same development point so no luck. The unfortunate point is that I did not back up the server this morning or yesterday as backing up everyday has never been necessary. I still feel that the data is in the database files, if only I knew how to open them such that I could read the data. Thanks for the help.

[Link]

But did you sign in as a different user altogether? There's a chance that your local data is mixed up somehow. Signing in as a different user will pull down the latest info from the model without affecting the copy you've been working on as your usual user.

Only GS Tech Support can really help you piece together the database. The only thing us mere users can do is backup and restore via the options in the BIM Server Manager. If what you are saying about not saving the local copy is correct, then the best best would be to re-import that latest BIM Server Backup, depending of course on your backup settings.

Cheers,
Link.