Level 2

151 points

After Lion Upgrade - Autosave failed!

I was working on two Pages documents and closed them.

According to Pages help I should have been asked to save:

Closing a Document Without Quitting Pages

When you have finished working with a document, you can close it without quitting Pages.

Here are ways to close documents and keep the application open:

To close the active document, choose File > Close, or click the close button in the upper-left corner of the document window.

To close all open Pages documents, press the Option key and choose File > Close All, or click the active document’s close button.

If you’ve made changes since you last saved the document, Pages prompts you to save.

But I wasn't asked.

When opening the two files later I noticed that the last changes (one chapter) in one of them were missing.

How can this be...?

iMac 27, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Kensington Expert Trackballs

Posted on Jul 30, 2011 6:05 PM

94 replies

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 4, 2011 3:01 PM in response to fruhulda

fruhulda wrote:

I read somewhere that the AutoSave saves once per hour.

Probably you've read this at http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/whats-new/features.html#versions about "Versions":

Automatic versions

Each time you open a document, Lion automatically saves the current version. It also saves a new version every hour while you work, building a history of the document as you go.

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 4, 2011 3:08 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

Try to create a new document from a template.

Save it immediately so that there will be a file allocated to the document.

type two words

wait two seconds

type two other words

…

rpeat that 5 or 6 times

then trigger the "Show versions" process. You will see that 5 or 6 versions are stored.

close the document.

I repeated that more than 50 times and the changes were always saved.

I've tried it. Typed 6 x 2 words as suggested. After opening the file in the end, there were just 5 x 2 words. Again the last modifications (= last version) were missing. I can not always reproduce this, but often.

BTW

No extensions.

No enhancers.

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 4, 2011 3:12 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

May you have a look at the permissions of the folder :

<startupVolume>:Users:<yourAccount>:Library:Autosave Information: ?

[...]

Check that the permissions are the ones displayed in this screenshot.

If they aren't (what I guess), reset them to these correct values.

Sorry - my permissions are fine.

(BTW Is there a way to ALWAYS show the (now) hidden Library folder?)

Aug 5, 2011 9:44 AM in response to coxorange

I can confirm autosave failing to save auto.

Continuing to work on a document after a longer phone call I closed the document expecting autosave to save it for me. Re-opened and the last changes were shining due to their absence.

If you rely on autosave you'll lose more data in a week than in a year on Snowy. 😝

So, now that we have autosave we traded our workflow for a bug. Keep punching cmd-S and blow up the autosave folder. Thank god I have 1 TB in my MacBook.

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Aug 5, 2011 10:00 AM in response to coxorange

coxorange wrote:

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

(1) Sorry - my permissions are fine.

(2) (BTW Is there a way to ALWAYS show the (now) hidden Library folder?)

(1) Sorry too.

(2) I already posted several times a script dedicated to this task.

As you perhaps know, I think that it's more useful to show the way to get an info than to give it.

Here you may see that it's really easy to use the Search tool efficiently.

There are no clumsy words in the keystring which prove to be really efficient.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 5 août 2011 19:00:07

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Aug 5, 2011 10:23 AM in response to papalapapp

papalapapp wrote:

I can confirm autosave failing to save auto.

What you may confirm is just that "on your machine it fails" !

In most of them it behaves well.

What is funny is that it seems that I am the only one trying to find what is the wrongdoer on your machine when on mine the feature behave flawlessly.

For sure, it's easier to rant with : I can confirm autosave failing to save auto.

than search what is wrong.

You (this means users whose autosave feature fails) are knowing what is installed on your machine.

On my side, I can't guess that.

If I remember well I asked if an extension adding features to the mouse or the touchpad (BetterTouch for instance) is installed on these machines.

If I remember well, nobody answered.

Difficult to help in such conditions.

If I quit this thread, it will change nothing for my machine's behavior.

If I stay here, maybe I will find which is the wrongdoer but to do that your help is required.

I will not file a bug report about your problem because Apple's bugs hunters would ask me to send a system profile of my machine which would be useless.

If you wish that I file a report, send me a full System Profiler Report to investigate this issue.

To obtain a full System Profiler Report, select "About This Mac" from the Apple Menu and click the "More Info" button. This automatically launches the System Profiler application. Once the System Profiler application has been launched please follow the steps below:

1. Select "View > Full Profile" from the File menu (cmd-3)

2. Select "Save" from the File menu (cmd-s)

3. Keep the format as 'System Profile'

4. Click the "Save" button

A System Profiler Report can also be obtained via Terminal using the following command:

/usr/sbin/system_profiler -detailLevel full -xml >mymachine.spx

This command will create a full System Profiler Report, named "mymachine.spx", which will open in System Profiler on another machine.

Compress the file in a zip archive then send it to my mailbox (click my blue name to get my address).

With such file(s) I would be able to file a bug report.

If I remember well, you are three users reporting this odd behavior in this thread.

If I receive 3 different system profile, the engineers would have intersting datas to investigate the problem.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 5 août 2011 19:12:07

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 5, 2011 1:59 PM in response to papalapapp

papalapapp wrote:

I can confirm autosave failing to save auto.

Thanks. Number three. Would you please report this to Apple?

papalapapp wrote:

Keep punching cmd-S...

Because nobody knows what's wrong here, I wouldn't trust cmd-S either (at the moment).

papalapapp wrote:

... and blow up the autosave folder.

I wouldn't do this either. Could confuse the system even more.

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 5, 2011 2:47 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

(2) I already posted several times a script dedicated to this task.

Thanks.

Aug 5, 2011 2:49 PM in response to coxorange

coxorange wrote:

(...)

papalapapp wrote:

... and blow up the autosave folder.

I wouldn't do this either. Could confuse the system even more.

I have submitted a bug report and described how I can reproduce it.

By blowing up I meant that the folder will expand like a balloon if I keep saving all the time because Pages will create lots of new permanent versions. 😝

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 5, 2011 4:36 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

What you may confirm is just that "on your machine it fails" !

In most of them it behaves well.

I see you want to protect Apple's reputation. I also respect and use many of their products, but in this case (Autosave) the consequence is data loss. You wrote that only a few users have had this problem, but I assume many others will only notice their data loss later (too late). This is a serious issue, this essential function must work correctly - this is not funny at all. I've already lost much time.

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

If I remember well I asked if an extension adding features to the mouse or the touchpad (BetterTouch for instance) is installed on these machines.

If I remember well, nobody answered.

I (iMac 27" 2010 i3) answered (see above).

Mike (MacBook...) helped by completely rebuilding his machine ( ! ) which certainly was a lot of work. For me his test was very significant.

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

I will not file a bug report about your problem because Apple's bugs hunters would ask me to send a system profile of my machine which would be useless.

I've sent them a report and they can contact me for further details (system profile...). Until now I haven't been contacted.

Thanks Yvan for your efforts.

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Aug 6, 2011 12:42 AM in response to coxorange

Hello

(1) Given the number of threads open about the AutoSave feature, it's really diffucult to guess that those angry users which are watching their machine with a magnifier to report everything odd didn't saw the behavior which you report without writing about it. Some one reported the described behavior with Final Cut, you described Pages's one here. May you really guess that reading that, other users aren't watching carefully their files behavior ?

I'm not trying to protect Apple reputation. I'm just an Apple user since the Apple ][ and I filed more than 200 bug reports. From my point of view, what is important is the truth and the truth is that we got more reports of lost documents per week before the use of Lion than we got since its delivery. This is why Apple designed the feature.

An application dysfonctionment may have lot ot possible causes.

Some may be due to the app or the system itself but much more may be due to other sources.

I already wrote about problem which was attributed to Apple's Lion until someone discovered that the culprit was BetterTouch.

I already wrote about an other problem attributed to Pages until someone discovered that the culprit was a wrong setting of a folder's permissions.

(2) Sure you wrote what is your machine but you didn't answer the question about third party extensions like BetterTouch.

(3) Where was filed you 'report' ?

Were you using the Feedback channel or the web page dedicated to developers. If you used the feedback channel, you will not get any kind of answer.

I was writing about .

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 6 août 2011 09:41:49

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

coxorange Author

Level 2

151 points

Aug 6, 2011 1:43 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

(1) Given the number of threads open about the AutoSave feature, it's really diffucult to guess that those angry users which are watching their machine with a magnifier to report everything odd didn't saw the behavior which you report without writing about it. Some one reported the described behavior with Final Cut, you described Pages's one here. May you really guess that reading that, other users aren't watching carefully their files behavior ?

I think usually only users with a certain problem come to the forums and only try to resolve that problem. Why should they search for information about Autosave when they aren't concerned (or haven't noticed yet that they are concerned)?

I already wrote about problem which was attributed to Apple's Lion until someone discovered that the culprit was BetterTouch.

I already wrote about an other problem attributed to Pages until someone discovered that the culprit was a wrong setting of a folder's permissions.

(2) Sure you wrote what is your machine but you didn't answer the question about third party extensions like BetterTouch.

I wrote: No extensions. No enhancers. (see above) BUT IMO if a feature gets designed BECAUSE there were so much...

... reports of lost documents per week...

... then this feature should be especially designed to be immune against the influence of possible extensions/enhancers - or at least be able to report conflicts (display a message).

(3) Where was filed you 'report' ?

Feedback channel. (I'm no developer). AFAIK even via feedback channel you will get contacted if important information regarding a problem is required. For that reason they want your email address.

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Aug 6, 2011 1:56 AM in response to coxorange

coxorange wrote:

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

(1) Given the number of threads open about the AutoSave feature, it's really diffucult to guess that those angry users which are watching their machine with a magnifier to report everything odd didn't saw the behavior which you report without writing about it. Some one reported the described behavior with Final Cut, you described Pages's one here. May you really guess that reading that, other users aren't watching carefully their files behavior ?

(1) I think usually only users with a certain problem come to the forums and only try to resolve that problem. Why should they search for information about Autosave when they aren't concerned (or haven't noticed yet that they are concerned)?

I already wrote about problem which was attributed to Apple's Lion until someone discovered that the culprit was BetterTouch.

I already wrote about an other problem attributed to Pages until someone discovered that the culprit was a wrong setting of a folder's permissions.

(2) Sure you wrote what is your machine but you didn't answer the question about third party extensions like BetterTouch.

I wrote: No extensions. No enhancers. (see above) BUT IMO if a feature gets designed BECAUSE there were so much...

... reports of lost documents per week...

(2) ... then this feature should be especially designed to be immune against the influence of possible extensions/enhancers - or at least be able to report conflicts (display a message).

(3) Where was filed you 'report' ?

(3) Feedback channel. (I'm no developer). AFAIK even via feedback channel you will get contacted if important information regarding a problem is required. For that reason they want your email address.

(1) I repeat that there are lots of threads ranting against AutoSave. If the ranters had enncountered the described behavior, they would have reported it.

I subscribed to a lot of these threads. Nobody wrote about it.

(2) I muist apologize. I missed or forgot your answer.

(3) In the feedback channel they get thousands of messages about this or that which are hiding important reports.

This is why I offered to file a report but to do that I must have your system profile file.

If you really wish to be efficient, it's the path of choice.

Don't worry, I'm too busy to waste time trying to look in your profile internals.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 6 août 2011 10:55:56

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

Aug 6, 2011 4:44 AM in response to coxorange

For those who are interested in trying to replicate the symptom, here is how I can do it:

1. Open an existing document and edit or don't edit it.

2. Let it sit a few minutes without editing e. g. 15 minutes. Surf the web, make a phone call or whatever.

3. Type in a few letters or words and close the window (cmd-W or the red button). Pages should save automatically.

When re-opening the document (I use the recent files menu) the new stuff is gone.

fruhulda

Level 6

15,167 points

Aug 6, 2011 4:55 AM in response to papalapapp

Due to not having Lion I can't replicated you instructions but when I read them I one thought. What says that Recent file is the very last saved one? Have you tried opening the latest document in any other way?

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After Lion Upgrade - Autosave failed!