Cancelling a save deletes the file on a Mac?

[rkny]

I've recently branched off on my own again after 8 years at a retouching studio.

My workflow has always been to save a new version of a Photoshop file for every round of client markups.

Often times I find myself in the middle of saving a large file and realize that I forgot to change the file name to the new version, so I hit ESC or click cancel, and save again with the correct file name.

Now I'm not sure this is something new in CC2018, Mac OS High Sierra, or simply the fact that I'm no longer in a network server environment, but previously, if I cancelled saving "Filename_Version_4.psd" and then saved "Filename_Version_5.psd", "Filename_Version_4.psd" would still be intact in its original location in the Finder.

Now I'm finding that if I hit ESC or cancel as I'm saving Version 4, Version 4 disappears.  I first noticed this behavior on Dropbox, where I often collaborate with others.  In this scenario, Dropbox moves the file to a trash folder.

But I'm not working on Dropbox at the moment.  I'm saving locally.  The files I'm working on were actually on Dropbox at one point, but they are no longer.

Could this be something to do with a remnant of the file being on Dropbox?  I've never seen this behavior on a Mac, even before I worked in a studio on a network.

Thanks.

[Grigor_Poghosyan]

did you check your trash ? 

[rkny]

Yep. Nothing there.

[Test Screen Name]

Dropbox just keeps multiple versions of each file. You still destroyed it. Mac OS doesn't do that.

[Grigor_Poghosyan · Accepted solution]

Try these settings Use “Keep Both” to Merge Same Name Files into Single Folder of Mac OS X

[rkny]

Thanks but that isn't related to what I'm doing. I'm not manually moving files, and I'm not saving into a directory with a different file with the same name, so there is no dialog to contend with.

1. I open a file called "Version 4" in Photoshop.

2. Do some work on it.

3. Start to re-save it. I'm not duplicating the existing file and trying to save it in the same directory, I'm merely opening, changing, and saving a file.

4. I cancel the save, then save it as "Version 5".

5. Look in the finder and "Version 5" is there, but "Version 4" is gone.

[Theresa J]

I’m working with High Sierra and Ps 2018. I’ve never seen this happen. Are you saving all of the version files in the same directory? Is the starting file on the startup hard drive, or a secondary drive, or an external drive? When did this problem start happening? Does it happen every time?  Can you repeat the behavior? Is there any other information that you can provide that I didn’t think to ask?

[rkny]

Are you saving all of the version files in the same directory?

Yes.

Is the starting file on the startup hard drive?

Yes.

When did this problem start happening?

It's been happening for a a couple of months. At first I was working out of a local Dropbox folder that I was sharing with freelancers and I thought the behavior was normal for Dropbox.  But since moving the files out of the Dropbox folder, it's still happening.

Does it happen every time? 

Seems to.

Can you repeat the behavior?

Yep, I just did.

[rkny]

Just to update what I've done to troubleshoot this...

I have reinstalled PS. I have restarted in safe mode. I have trashed my PS prefs. I've uninstalled plugins, fonts, brushes, etc. I have deleted the Finder prefs. I have reinstalled 10.13.3. I've done everything I can think of aside from wiping the computer and reinstalling everything.

[Studio Mint]

I got the same issues. Have you come up with a solution?

/Karl

[rkny]

No solution yet. However, I did wipe my computer and reinstall High Sierra from scratch and then Photoshop and the issue was still there.  This indicates to me that problem has nothing to do with Dropbox. It seems to either be a Photoshop issue or a Mac OS issue, or a combination. 

[D Fosse]

Former PS senior engineer Chris Cox once described in detail Photoshop's save over procedure.

He called it "safe save", and the basic procedure is that PS first saves a complete copy to a temp directory (can't recall where). When this new version is complete and verified in the temp location, the previous version is deleted and replaced with the new one.

So if this happens as described (which I've never seen btw), that means the temp version is aborted - but PS still goes ahead and deletes the previous one. That's obviously not supposed to happen (duh), so reproducible steps that lead to this should be posted as a bug report in the feedback forum.

Just throwing this out: Could it be that "save as to original folder" is unchecked in Preferences, and the file is actually saved, only to a different location than expected?

[rkny]

I wish it were as simple as a save as setting but that’s not it. The file is gone poof.  Even digging through a few different temp folders produces nothing that matches file size or date of the original.

[Studio Mint]

Seems that the problem has to do with the file system APFS. Guess that your disc is formatted in APFS.... Try saving on a drive with another file system and it should probably work. This sucks and Adobe has to address this issue right away.

[rkny]

I'm not sure about AFPS being the culprit. My 12" MacBook with High Sierra and AFPS does not exhibit this behavior.

[michellel24243918]

I also am losing my photoshop file when cancelling the save. The "answer" on this post doesn't relate to photoshop at all and is not helpful.

any real fix ideas? I just updated photoshop. I am on high sierra, and did not have this problem until I started on high sierra

[rkny]

I encourage you to open a support ticket. They need to hear from as many people experiencing this issue as possible.

[Dzeib]

Same issue happening here.
As far as I have experienced this only happens (in my case) when opening files from within a file server.
When opening a file on local there's no problem.

I think there is something about how mac or/and the server file configuration works.
Mine is set on SMB and with raid 5.

Didn't find a solution yet, for my specific workflow we need to get access and work from this server files, so it's realy annoying if someone slips and saves and cancels... 😞

If I find a workaround I'll post it here.

[Dzeib]

Ok, so with further testing I've been able to determine that disks working on a EXFAT file system DOES cause this problem on MacOS Sierra + Photoshop CC2018.
Doing the same thing on a MacOs Plus does not make files to be erased when a saving is cancelled.
Hope I can help with this.