So it was on the internal disk, correct?
What format is it?
In which path do you remember to have saving it?
Do you have multiple mac user accounts? Are you logged in as the same user?
This is Xojo, it happened to me some times. Either a file gone Or most of the time, a file partialy written (irrecoverable). So, as Beatrix says, have multiple backups.
Solution… First time, try a data recovery with no success, lost a couple weeks of work. Next times, used the last backup and only once lost a few hours.
Arnaud, Mike, and everyone else who’s contributed to this thread, thank you guys so much for your willingness to help me try to resolve this issue, but I’m afraid Ivan has identified the problem. And unfortunately, the problem appears to have no solution other than to make sure it doesn’t happen again by keeping multiple copies of my project files as he and Beatrix advised.
Ivan, I’m sorry to hear about your own lost time and effort but at least I now know that this has happened to someone else, and I haven’t lost my mind or entered some strange parallel universe. Sometimes the truth is unpleasant but at least it has the virtue of being the truth. A costly lessen to be sure but one well learned. 
1 Like
Sorry to hear it as Ive been there too - just about in tears. Ive gotten into the habit of doing a quick git checkin every time i feel ive made a significant step. (I love GitKraken) Its a bit of a nit at first but after a short time its just as routine as checking email or the weather. You just start doing it by muscle memory. Now, I also really love that i can go down a rabbit hole if I want to and easily roll back if it goes bust.
Use this as a learning moment. Use version control, and commit often. It becomes very hard to lose work that way.
1 Like
With Xojo you have to ̶c̶̶o̶̶m̶̶m̶̶i̶̶t̶̶ save every 5 Minutes …
Uh… no. But I’d recommend every time you have a feature or bug fix complete.
commit was wrong, save every 5 minutes.
(i said this because my current ide have a unexpected problem and i lost a hour)
Yeah, definitely. I save before every run, if not more frequently.
I’m “worse” than you; I usually save at every completed line or paragraph (when I come to think for further lines, it’s a reflex).
3 Likes
But should this saving method not be for any environment?
Any environment save, save , save, and make sure to save
Yeah I have the save reflex for everything, thanks to the System 7 days.
1 Like
The thing is, guys, I’ve hit the Command and S buttons so many times they both had to be replaced. All kidding aside, I too am from the System 7 days so it’s very rare that I run my project without saving it first. And on those rare occasions when I don’t save before running, it’s a weird feeling. The issue is that the project file and its build simply vanished off my hard drive.
One of these days, I’ll have to tell you what happened to me when I was driving up I-95 north. That will really blow your mind.
Yeah, for the record I have seen this happen. No idea why, and no warning either. It’s rare, but it has happened. That’s one advantage of the text format: you can see when files aren’t being updated before you close your window. With binary, that’s much harder.
1 Like
One of the things I do is every time I open a file, I immediately do a “save as” and increment the name with .01, .02, .03, etc. If I have a problem, I can go back to the most recent previous version. So not only making one backup, but many over the course of a day with the suffix number means I can find a recent (or earlier) version if needed.
Like others, I have learned the hard way.
It sounds like you should be using version control.
1 Like
TimeMachine does that for me without my having to think about it. Not different versionnumbers on the file, but each version saved will have its own timestamp.
TimeMachine must work, which it does more and less. The interface is atrocious. And I don’t have any control over TimeMachine.
Well - there it is. I think the interface is fine because it mimics the Finder. So I can treat as a file system when browsing through to find the file/folder to restore. That’s important when restoring something - I want it restored NOW and not in 20 minutes when I’ve looked up how do do some operation that I only do twice a year.
What extra control would you like to see?