Xojo 2025r1.1 stopped saving, lost hours of work

General
1

Working for a few hours, I tried to copy a method from one window to another, and it would not paste. I tried several times, different windows, the method would not copy. I saved the project and restarted Xojo. When I opened the project, it was obviously not the version I had saved, nor the version I had been working on for the past two hours. I checked the last save time/date for the file, and it was several hours ago, although I had just save the project before quitting, and many times prior to that.

The result is: I lost hours of work, completely. Xojo stopped saving the project. I saved it repeatedly, the dialog said it was saved. It wasn’t. No Time machine backup can fix this.

Obviously I can’t reproduce this and would never want to, but it sure hasn’t brightened my day.

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2

Aaron,

First. Sorry to hear it/that sucks. It’s frustrating to lose work.

Second, any additional details such as:

  • What operating system?
  • What version of that operating system?
  • What project format (binary, XML, text) were you saving in?
  • What type of Xojo project was it (Desktop, Web, etc.)
  • Was the project being saved on a network folder or in a folder that some service (e.g. iCloud, Box, etc.) is syncing?

can help spark ideas as to the root cause and be genuinely useful information for the Xojo team and community to help ferret out the root cause.

Anthony

3

M1 Studio
macOS Monterey
Desktop
binary project
No network, no cloud, etc.

The file is on the internal SSD, there is only one version of this file there. The file that did open does have changes from about 3 hours ago today – it IS the same file I had open and was working on, just doesn’t include any of the work I did for the past two hours because Xojo stopped saving the file.

4

Have you turned off iCloud drive? (it’s on by default)

If you haven’t, is the file causing the issue inside of the Documents or Desktop folder?

I really don’t like that this is on by default on newer MacOS computers and I wasn’t aware of it when I first upgraded to my M4 Mac Mini.

So just double checking that Apple’s “helping” isn’t doing you harm here.

Anthony

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5

Thanks, all that stuff is off, I don’t use it at all. Not signed into my Apple account.

Working again on this same file, the problem with copying and pasting a method from one window to another just started happening again. Doesn’t work. So I checked whether Xojo is saving, and it is. But it won’t paste methods from one window to another. I mention this, because that’s when I quit before and ran into the reported not-saving problem.

6

Using version control and Xojo’s text format helped me avoid several problems with lost work.

I have never experienced what you describe, but saving and commit the changes help me a lot.

I’m sorry you lost hours of work.

7

Honestly - this is starting to sound like it might be a corrupted save file?

Maybe make a new project and copy everything over to it and see if the problem persists with the new file.

FWIW, like Alberto, I use the “Xojo Project”, text file and haven’t seen this issue occur.

It’s probably worth submitting a copy of the problematic file to Xojo in a private case if you’re able.

Best,
Anthony

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The file seems to be okay. I did back it up. Have never had a problem like this before 


In any case, thanks guys for the MitgefĂŒhl.

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9

for the records, I WOULD NOT use a 3 years old macos with an actual xojo


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Why not? The older the macOS the less insane it is.

5 Likes
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because I’ve seen some bugs here that were related to new systems
it’s not good to mix old and new things between macos and xojo
sometimes it’s in a macos<xojo, sometimes the other
I’ve stayed with xojo 2019 and macos high sierra for a long time.
when I uopdated, I updated all of them.
3 years difference is too risky IMHO.

the main problem is: nobody has the same configuration, especially at xojo teams
so the bugs are difficult to identify.
always use softwares of the same “era”.
but it’s just my 2cts, everybody does as he/she wants.

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13

Per the system requirements for the IDE:

Monterey is a supported build, so the OS version shouldn’t be causing Aaron’s issue, and if it is, I’d expect Xojo to treat it as a bug.

Anthony

2 Likes
14

you can treat this as a bug no problem
but how do you find the root cause of this bug that happened on ONE customer only ONCE for now
and on a configuration all of your team does not have ?
pretty sure nobody can reproduce this bug.

for a workaround, it happened to me some bug like this. xojo hangs and you did not save.
rare, but it happens.
now I save my work more often, let’s say no more than 1/2 hour.
each time some thing I work on is coded and tested, I save.
not bulletproof, but easy to handle .

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It’s not rare that I save after each paragraph (even line) of code; I find it safer :sweat_smile:

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Out of curiosity, was your disk volume APFS? I had an external SSD formatted as APFS and after a year of seamless operation, one day all my files were
gone.
Since then MacOS extended and no issues (not quite true: on Silicon Macs it takes about 1 minute for the volume to mount, instant on older Intel Macs, so I doubt it’s the Sandisk. A search indicates Apple’s USB drivers have more and more issues with each release).
At least i’ve had no data loss. I wonder if this is what bit you as well?

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This is kinda getting off topic but since you mentioned files disappearing from a Sandisk drive
 if you’re using a 2021-22-era external Sandisk SSD, there are many, many reports of these drives failing due to a design & manufacturing flaw. If you are on one of these drives I’d migrate to different hardware ASAP.

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My 2c - I have heard from several people that using ‘save’ doesnt replace the saved file, or that when they opened a file up it was hours or days old.
This doesnt just affect Xojo.

ALWAYS use ‘save as’ and save with a new name is my best suggestion.

19

If you save several times per hour, you’ll end up with names such as “MyProject 1” to “MyProject 271” in this case.

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And.. ? :slight_smile:
I usually save with a filename that includes the date. Sometimes the time. Easy enough to delete unwanted ones.

271 saves in a day would be one save per minute

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21
  • If I had problems like this, I would completely reinstall my Mac.
  • If the error still occurs, I would close all third-party software while using Xojo.
  • If that still doesn’t help, I would use https://www.keyboardmaestro.com. It would monitor the project file and notify me whenever the file has changed, so that when I “save,” I immediately know if something went wrong.
1 Like