File corrupted

[Igor Roberti Foc]

Hello,
I saved my file but somenthing in the was wrong, the result is that my file was half writed and corrupted :O :O
I don't have a backup, is it saved a backup in some place the backup?

Thank you

[Mathieu]

Hi,

That's a pretty bad situation... Can you send me the file or post it here? Unfortunately, there's no automated backup.

[Steve French]

Hello!
I know this doesn't help your current situation, but when I work in light jams for a show I always increment the file name as I make changes. This saves against any corrupt file and also I can go back in time to look at older versions as I change things...

2017-10-03_SexFest1.ljp
2017-10-03_SexFest2.ljp
2017-10-03_SexFest3.ljp

I just have to remember to save and increment as I develop a show... but it has become part of my workflow.

Good luck!
Frenchy (Steve French)
www.voltvision.com

[Igor Roberti Foc]

Thank you,
I lost just 5-6 hour because I found a backup on the NAS :) I recreate a grid and now is much better implemented. No problem.
A tricks used on others software is to make a copy before save. Maybe can help, because there is a lot of hour in a project.

Thx for the tips

[Mathieu]

Hi,

Losing work is really bad. Did you get an error message when saving? Or do you remember anything strange happening?

A backup of the file can surely be made before saving. However, if it's already corrupted, that wouldn't help. 

I may save in a temporary file first, then do a backup and swap the temp file. My guess is that in your case, saving in the temporary file would have failed, leaving your project file intact.

[Mathieu]

Here's an update that hopefully will avoid that anyone lose work in the future. 

In the beta v451: "A project backup file is created every 5 minutes. To avoid slowdown during a live show, you need to manually save the project to trigger the backup creation. To open a backup, select the Backup file type in the file browser when opening a project. To set the backup to be the current project, simply save the project. This should bring peace of mind to many of us knowing we can always go back in time in case something is wrong with the latest project file."

http://www.lightjams.com/history.html

Let me know what you think!

[Igor Roberti Foc]

I clicked save and the screen was freezed. After 2 minutes I killed the app. The file that was 3MB, after was 200 kB. In the room I have some problem with the wifi and I work on NAS.

Yes, not really a good choice. By the way, I will check your update. Thank you very much.

[Mathieu]

Oh! Saving over the network. Effectively, this is really more fragile than saving locally. There's not much to do if the network is slow or becomes unavailable but at least with the new version, the project file will not get partially written.

[Jack]

It's a great new feature. When you save a project, it automatically creates a backup.

That is very handy.

But when does that 5min. automatic backup start ? I saved a project, changed something with a source and waited. Nothing happened. No automatic backup.

[Jack]

oh. I think I get it now. The backup creation is like in the background in memory.

When you don't save the project file, there won't be any backups. Just in memory.

So, you'r working on a project. Once in 5 minutes there is a backup available to be saved. If you don't save, it won't be a backup on disk.

But if you save, there's a backup.

So, let''s say, you work 20 minutes on a project from scratch.

After 5 minutes, there is a backup possible.

If you don't save, there won't be a backup saved.

You work and work, and after 20 minutes without saving, you decide to save your project.

Then there have been 4 backups been created in memory, but none of them was saved.

After 20 minutes you save your project, and with the saving of the project you also get a backup file on disk.

So, basically, every saving of a changed project file causes a backup file if the time passed since the last save was longer than  5 minutes.

[Mathieu]

Hi Jack,

There's no backup in memory. If you don't save, there's no backup. When you save, a backup is created for a maximum of one backup each 5 minutes.

I think it's important to not cause any slowdown by automatically creating a backup. When you're during a show, it would be unacceptable.

[Jack]

Okay, that sounds sensible. Just press ctrl-s now and then.

I'm trying to make an effect from scratch. I look at the fixture and try things.. I think.. that looks okay, .. let's see if I can emphasize this or that.

Before I change something, I press ctrl-s. Then I change something to make the effect better.

But instead of improving it was getting worse. So, I can get back to the backup file. Usually I do a few undo's to step back in time.