Working with Autosave

[kdoc2]

What is the best care and feeding of the autosave files and the manually saved ones.

I manually save when I remember to, and generally then close and reopen that one (the one I entered the project with)--unless there's been a crash and I then open the last autosaved file.

After each one or two long work sessions I move the autosaved files to a new folder (which I'll eventually delete). I do this because the number of autosaves is limited to 20 or 50 or whatever.

I set autosave to 5 minutes.

Comments? Help?

kdoc

[R Neil Haugen]

Best Practice is to treat auto-save as a simple fail-safe that may easily fail. You're best safety is in manually save-as incremental saves.

Corrupted bits get into projects every once in a while. If you're relying on auto-saves or simply a manual save, you save the corruption OVER THE TOP of your project ... you're screwed. Auto-saves set at say 5 minute intervals, 20 saves total ... first, if you're working away without a break, you may not get the autosaves you expect as it won't stop and auto-save while you're working. Second ... if you do ... you have say 3 sequences, you work some on startup for the day, then go on to the others. In the meantime, somehow a corrupted bit got into the first sequence that you're not aware of.

20 five-minute saves is what ... two hours? Maybe it skipped a few because of hard continuous editing ... so let's say, three hours. You work your morning shift, take a break for lunch ... something is a bit odd ... or the program just says "there's corruption here, no clue what to do ... I can't open this project anymore" ... so you go to your autosaves ... and every flipping one is corrupted because the corruption occurred right early in your work in the morning.

Even as shown above, a manual save to the same name will simply over-write that unnoticed corruption into the project.

Save-as iterative saves however get you past all of the above ... and they are the only solution that does.

shooternz told me this when I had my first auto-save fail of a project what ... 5 years back now? Unfortunately, my project was by then screwed, and I got the joy of rebuilding it.

School of Hard Knocks is one heck of a teacher ...

Neil

[Ann Bens]

Auto save can save your butt...

But if project is corrupt without you knowing so can all your auto saves.

Make a habit of making a Save a copy... preferable to another drive on a regular basis.

[kdoc2]

Neil and Ann,

Thanks. I'm getting your gist and will switch to save-as. Can you please be a little more specific? Let's say I'm working on MGM-5.prprog. 1. What do you save as each time? MGM-5a, MGM-5b.prprog, MGM-5c...etc.?

2. When you close do you then close MGM-5c and also as MGM-5?

3. Then which one do you open each time? If there's been no crash, you could open either one, but without looking at the entire project, there can also have been something changed that you didn't notice. (Though probably fixable--not terribly "corrupted."). I'm guessing you're working with a different file name each time you open--the last Save-As

4. Do you save all your Save-as files?

5. Do you not use Auto-save at all? and do you only Manually save in the Save-As form?

Please spell out exactly what you do.

kdoc

[R Neil Haugen]

You need to decide your own way of saving iteratives ... I just use letters ... as with 26, I don't add a second space in many projects ... and they always sort properly. If you do numbers, you typically need to use space-holder zeros ... 01, 02, and on ... so they sort properly.

Wedding_Hoffman_JohnDebbie could be the starting name.

Wedding_Hoffman_JohnDebbie_A first iterative save ... then B ... and on.

As I save-as, I move forward to the one I've just created ...

And yes, I do have autosave set to run. I just don't rely on auto-save.

Neil

[kdoc2]

Neil and/or Bob and/or etc.

1. So then, let's say you're working for 4 hours on the project. Do you manually Save-As every 10-20 minutes or so: Name-A, Name-B, Name-C etc? (Or do you use Name-A-01, Name-A-02

2. Then you close it with the last name: Name-N, or Name-A-018, for example?

3. Then you later re-open the same Name-xxx you closed?

4. And you keep all these *.prprog files in 2 places? (0riginal and a copy)

5. And do you save or don't save the autosaves for the future, assuming you haven't needed them with the next few openings?

Thanks

kdoc

[R Neil Haugen]

For me, yes. Project files aren't normally all that big. I save-as during the day, and copy the folder elsewhere most days. Realistically  I don't always get the days work backed to another location ... as sometimes I have done mostly sorting through or some marking or such ... and don't bother copying that to a different location.

Any significant work is definitely getting a copy of the folder to the other location.

Some people do rename the project file with a bit that identifies what they've added to the project that session. Between the iterative alpha/numeric bit, and that ... they can look at their project files and have a pretty good clue where they want to go back to if they decide they want to rework from an earlier version.

Neil

[kdoc2]

Neil, Ann, Bob, or to Whom,

One last question on this point: Do you feel that copying the project file to a cloud, such as Microsoft OneDrive or Creative Cloud is a sufficient backup location?

Thank you,

kdoc

[R Neil Haugen]

I know Jim does have his project files synced to the CC cloud. I've thought about it, but haven't done it.

Easy enough to do both.

Neil

[Peru Bob · Accepted solution]

kdoc2  wrote

Neil and/or Bob and/or etc.

1. So then, let's say you're working for 4 hours on the project. Do you manually Save-As every 10-20 minutes or so: Name-A, Name-B, Name-C etc? (Or do you use Name-A-01, Name-A-02

I save using the convention mentioned in my earlier post.

I save after any major edit or difficult edit or every ten minutes or so, whichever come s first.

user

2. Then you close it with the last name: Name-N, or Name-A-018, for example?

Project Name vX, where X is the next consecutive whole number.

user

3. Then you later re-open the same Name-xxx you closed?

I don't close the project after saving.  I just continue editing until the session is done.

user

4. And you keep all these *.prprog files in 2 places? (0riginal and a copy)

Yes.  Original on my media drive and  copy (with the same file name) on my backup drive.  The autosaves reside on the backup drive in its own folder.

user

5. And do you save or don't save the autosaves for the future, assuming you haven't needed them with the next few openings?

I save them until the project is done, delivered, archived, and the archive is backed up..

[kdoc2]

Whew: we've (err, you've) done it.

Anne, Neil, Bob (and even Meg), Thank you all.

This emergency response team provided is TERRIFIC.

kDOC

[R Neil Haugen]

Glad to have helped.

Neil

[Peru Bob]

You're welcome.

[Peru Bob]

I save like this:

Project Name v1 saved to my media drive and then copied to my backup drive.

Do some editing.

Project Name v2 saved to my media drive and then copied to my backup drive.

Do some more editing.

Project Name v3 saved to my media drive and then copied to my backup drive.

...etc.

If I need to use a backup (or an autosave), I don't open the backup (or an autosave), but copy the backup (or an autosave) to my media drive and then open the copy.