Re: Autosave file location

[David Reitter]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your comment.

That the Caches directory per se isn’t backed up doesn’t seem to be a major concern to me, given that the autosave is already a short-term backup mechanism.

What is strange, however, is that this Caches directory was deleted during your crash or the subsequent reboot. I don’t think that this is desirable when we’re storing the auto-save backups there, and that would be a reason for changing the default.

You may customize `auto-save-file-name-transforms’ to change the default.

If we want to change it in Aquamacs - do you have a pointer to documentation that would help me understand why your Caches directory was deleted?

Thanks,
David


--
http://aquamacs.org -- Aquamacs: Emacs on Mac OS X
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On Mar 25, 2014, at 1:17 PM, Peter Dalgaard <pd....@cbs.dk> wrote:

> Aquamacs saves its autosave files under ~/Library/Caches (I haven't spotted if this can be changed). That directory is not backed up by Time Machine.
>
> This is unfortunate in case you want to look for an older autosave file.
>
> I got burned today:
>
> System had had a powerfailure when I arrived this morning. Upon reboot, aquamacs restarted, telling me to upgrade to 3.0 (was running the prerelease). So I upgraded Aquamacs. THEN I realized that the file I was editing last night wasn't saved but contained a version from ~4hr earlier. Apparently, all autosave files from the session was wiped and nothing was in the backups either.
>
> It's my own bloody fault, of course, but it does seem to me that the autosave default directory could have been chosen differently.
>
> --
> Peter Dalgaard, Professor
> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> Phone: (+45)38153501
> Email: pd....@cbs.dk Priv: PDa...@gmail.com
>
>

[Peter Dalgaard]

On 25 Mar 2014, at 19:56 , David Reitter <david....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
> Thanks for your comment.
>
> That the Caches directory per se isn’t backed up doesn’t seem to be a major concern to me, given that the autosave is already a short-term backup mechanism.
>
> What is strange, however, is that this Caches directory was deleted during your crash or the subsequent reboot. I don’t think that this is desirable when we’re storing the auto-save backups there, and that would be a reason for changing the default.
>
> You may customize `auto-save-file-name-transforms’ to change the default.
>
> If we want to change it in Aquamacs - do you have a pointer to documentation that would help me understand why your Caches directory was deleted?

I'm afraid not. This stuff always happens when you're not looking. All I know is that when I opened the file after the reboot, I didn't see anything like "autosave file is newer" and that the thing that sat in the autosave directory was the version from before editing. (And being a software supporter myself, I know all too well that not seeing something is not equivalent to it not being there!)

However, just to make my original point: I'm currently editing a homework assignment, just like the other day. As usual, I write a couple of sentences, then a bit of paper-and-pencil work, then some computations, etc. So the file stays open for a while. Right now, I have

$ ls -l ~/Library/Caches/Aquamacs\ Emacs/AutoSave/#\!Users\!pd\!undervisning\!SandStat\!2013-2014\!opgaver\!hj4.tex#
-rw-r--r-- 1 pd messagebus 3679 Mar 27 16:44 /Users/pd/Library/Caches/Aquamacs Emacs/AutoSave/#!Users!pd!undervisning!SandStat!2013-2014!opgaver!hj4.tex#

and the latest incremental backup was at 17:07.

I'm about to leave for a meetup across town. Suppose I forget to save (I won't...) and the computer crashes during the night, or I somehow make a major editing goof and save it, wouldn't it be nice to be able to dig out the autosave file from the backups?

-pd

[Peter Dalgaard]

A couple of reboots later, it seems that I cannot reproduce the situation. Some observations, but nothing that explains the mishap:

- on Mavericks, a system crash-recovery tries to restart running applications. Aquamacs will usually start, but won't reopen its files. Sometimes it hangs and needs to be Force Quit'ed, but that doesn't blow away any auto-save files.

- sometimes the "auto-save file is newer" message is overwritten by other messages. like "applying style hooks" so it can be missed. Opening an older version does not by itself kill the auto-save file, though.

I'm beginning to suspect that I fell into the old-file-as-template trap. If you copy a file, then edit it and delete almost everything except the skeleton outline, then fill in the template with new stuff, auto-save gets turned off after the deletions, and stays off no matter how much you add back in, unless you save the file or explicitly turn auto-save mode back on. (Apparently, this is considered a feature. I tend to disagree, but it is certainly deliberate.)

-pd

On 25 Mar 2014, at 19:56 , David Reitter <david....@gmail.com> wrote: