Lost compositions after Purge???

[barryb71238904]

Hello, first time post and I am hoping this is something very simple to resolve???

Ok, so here is my problem:

I have/had quite a hefty file which I was RAM rendering however only a minute or so of the 21 mins+ rendered.

I then went on to purge the file to speed up the rendering however once i have done this all but one of the compositions have completely gone!

It seems to have auto saved? even thought this option was not selected and did not give me the option to save?

I have no idea what has happened and your help will save me over 2 weeks worth of work.

This happened at 17:00 UK time and i had been saving it frequently during the day. Is there a way I can recover previously saved versions from my external hardrive by date and time? Is this a lost cause or can anyone at least explain how this is happened to avoid it in the future. I appreciate your feedback and look forward to hearing from you.

[barryb71238904]

By the way I am using CS3 and the original files are on a seagate external HD. If this helps any?

[Dave_LaRonde]

You wrote that it autosaved.  Open up one of the autosaved versions, and you won't have to replicate as much work.

FYI -- unless your computer has about 4-8 terabytes of RAM, you'll NEVER be able to preview 21 minutes!  People who work in AE get used to previewing small sections of their work.

[barryb71238904]

Hello Dave,

It was as if it has saved automatically. I have never used auto save previously. The file has gone from a 2 mb file to an 88kb so its obvious the multiple files have been deleted some how and saved?

I saved it minutes before attempting to purge then after the purge process it gave no option to save or any indication that it had saved?

Thanks for the advice on the preview.

[Szalam]

When you say you "purged" the file, what do you mean?

[barryb71238904]

Purged to clear memory.

[P.M.B]

You went to    Edit>Purge>Purge all Memory? 

[barryb71238904]

Edit>Purge>All (if i remember right?)

[P.M.B]

Weird.  From your description of what happened it sound like you did a "reduce project" and not a purge.  Hopefully it's a one time anomaly.

[barryb71238904]

Would reduce project automatically save?

[P.M.B]

In the current version of AE reduce project would delete everything except the currently selected composition and all the files associated with it (which sounds like exactly what happened to you) but it would warn you with a confirmation dialogue first. That's with recent versions though,  I have no idea if reduce project existed in CS3 and how it functioned if it did.   It's just what you're describing sounds like what reduce project would do, definitely NOT what purge should do

[barryb71238904]

Yes, that sounds about right, I think I may have been prompted and maybe a slip of the mouse saved it. I tried to undo it with out any joy. I was hoping there was a way to restore the file from a time as I was saving constantly throughout the day

[Szalam]

Gutter-Fish  wrote

Weird.  From your description of what happened it sound like you did a "reduce project" and not a purge. 

That's kind of what I was thinking too. But I'm used to it saving it to a new location with a new name. But, as with you, I can't recall how CS3 did things. CS3 was AE version 8. I have AE version 7 kicking around somewhere that I could check with if I could find it...but I think that computer might be stored in the hangar right now, so I'm not going to be able to check it easily.

[Szalam]

So, the command via the Edit menu?

And, after that command, your compositions were deleted and your file size got WAY smaller?

That's very unusual. I don't know how the two things could be related other than their proximity to each other in time...

Do you have any other versions of your file? I usually save incrementally every day (if not a few times during the day) and I keep autosave turned on so I have a bunch of other copies of the version I'm currently working on too.

Did CS3 even have the option to auto-save? I can't remember. Anyway, if you didn't have auto-save turned on and if you weren't saving incrementally, I don't know what to suggest to you unless you have Carbonite or some other form of backup turned on.

[barryb71238904]

Yes it has bamboozled me too, I have never had this problem and never for a minute thought clearing memory would do this. And no I did not save any alternative versions last one is weeks old and I have learned a hard lesson today I just hope someone recognises my problem and has a solution.