Saving a Site, multiple "versions" open

@Norm

I have been having this problem, where I dont know why my saves dont have the latest updates I have done on my current project. On the app icon, there are showing different number of files of the same project but the problem I have is each one of these files is like a different version. So when I go to save them, sometimes the latest changes don’t save correctly…

Screen Shot 2020-05-16 at 2.46.46 AM

I also have been trying to do a Save As… so that I could have different versions of the same file, but when I try to do that, instead of receiving a dialog to change the name of the current project to a new one for example Project123 and Save As Project123-A so this 2nd file is a duplicate of the first file… but with different changes, I am unable to do so. Why would this be?

Best thing to do is report a bug:

https://help.blocsapp.com/knowledge-base/reporting-bugs/

Best thing to do is report a bug:
Reporting Bugs – Blocs – User Documents

What of everything I discussed is a bug?

Unless I misread I thought you are having save issues??

The list you are seeing is the recent history of files you’ve opened in Blocs. If you open a file and simply save it after making some edits, you will be overwriting the same file. However, the same file name will appear multiple times in your history list. Whichever one you select from the list should just open the same file - including the most recent changes you made to it.

If you want to save different versions of the same file, then you would use the save as option and give the project a new name. When you do this, any changes made will not show up in the original project file - they will only be seen in the newly-named project.

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If you want to save different versions of the same file, then you would use the save as option and give the project a new name. When you do this, any changes made will not show up in the original project file - they will only be seen in the newly-named project.

I tried using Save As… but I dont get a dialog to save the file under a different name at all…

Now my save is not launching the content I have been working on for the past 2 weeks, the same save I tried to save yesterday successfully…

So basically the app took the 11mb .bloc file and somehow deleted it and this is a brand new .bloc file of 8kb in size and the previous one is nowhere to be found…

Please tell me somewhere on my mac, Bloc saves a copy of the save file it overwrites for security and recovery purposes… because if not, then I’m getting a strange feeling I just lost a month of work worth… and I would have to start from scratch to get it where it was…

I just don’t understand how is it a save can completely delete a save and leave me with a blank project.

Do you have a backup? Time Machine?

Time Machine doesnt recognize the file as a backup so it doesnt let me scroll back to a different version. I’m a recovery application, but it doesnt find the file because it was never deleted, just overwritten…

Surely you can go back and just grab the saved version from an hour or less before. It will ask you if you want to overwrite or keep both files.

No, I tried. For some reason it doesnt detect the old version of that particular file.

That’s weird. It should just be in the same folder with the same name. Do you have cloud back ups?

An afterthought but you could probably recoup the file manually from Time Machine without going through the visual stepping back. Just locate it through the finder.

That’s weird. It should just be in the same folder with the same name. Do you have cloud backups?

No, I, unfortunately, didn’t store this on iCloud. I have a work drive where I store all my work, and I have never had an issue like this, where an application overwrote my work with nothing and

An afterthought but you could probably recoup the file manually from Time Machine without going through the visual stepping back. Just locate it through the finder.

That was the third thing I tried when I opened up Time Machine, I also went behind the hood, over command line and tried a couple of additional things, but nothing I could do because Blocs doesn’t save a backup of the file it just modified.

Right now I’m trying to make sense how can I do my work, with an app that has the possibility of corrupting my save and screwing up all the work I put over in building it.

This was a paid project, and it had a delivery date, one that I have to embarassingly ask my client to move further down the line.

None of this makes sense with Time Machine, irrespective of what may have happened with Blocs. Blocs doesn’t need to save a backup file for Time Machine to work, it merely needs to have a project file that exists on a drive that hasn’t been excluded via Time Machine preferences. Time Machine would normally back up any changed file once an hour, assuming you have selected the option to make backups automatically and selected a destination drive.

My best suggestion is that you send the project file into @Norm with a bug report and as much information as you can include. He may be able to extract your previous work from the file. https://help.blocsapp.com/knowledge-base/reporting-bugs/#bug-report-form

I’ve been using Blocs now since late 2016 and almost daily over the last couple years, yet never encountered a problem like you have described.

I recently started using iCloud just a couple days ago, having bought a new computer and wishing to keep the old one updated. I was nervous about this change in workflow, however I also have Time Machine, Backblaze and SuperDuper backups on both computers, plus I now make occasional backups to disk images with backups! 90% of my work is for clients and I am pretty paranoid about having usable backups.

Hi @gpalau, that’s not how Time Machine would work.
If the good file existed on there before the bad file, and provided it’s not well into the past, the previous version should still exist on your Time Machine disc somewhere.
Of course, the more time that goes by, the more of the older backups will disappear, but as we stand today, May 18, my 4TB Time Machine drive has backups to 17 April available to me.
I’m assuming you have delved last the initial ‘backups.backupsdb’ > ‘iMac’ window when you open up the Time Machine disc?

I have to agree with others regarding the Time Machine backups. Time machine doesn’t differentiate between file types (unless you set it up to ignore specific files/directories). It simply backs up your files/directories no matter what the file type. Just open the time machine volume and make the following selections:

Backups.backupdb
Select the folder with the name of your iMac
Select a date folder (usually the latest date)
Macintosh HD - Data
Users
Select the appropriate user folder

You should now see a list of folders from your iMac - documents, desktop, music, pictures etc. Select the folder where your blocs files are saved. for example, if you save you project files to the Desktop, select the desktop folder. If you save to the documents folder, select documents.

You should then see all the files and folders within that location and you should be able to see your blocs project files. This is what it should look like:

You can now drag the file(s) from the finder window onto your desktop and open it in Blocs as usual.

I appreciate, how everyone has taken their time to explain to me how Time Machine backups work. However, in my case, the file didn’t backup properly via Time Machine. It could have been the drive, it could have been many other factors, bad luck, crappy horoscope reading, the phases of the moon, or the solar sunspots affecting the earth magnetics field and all electronics (for more reasons: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ballard/bofh/bofhserver.pl)

The main culprit was, the application. I already submitted a bug report, and I have a ticket open with support… the application didn’t crash, or provided me any visual feedback to give me the impression the save wasn’t carried out or the file got corrupted. The only indicator I got was opening the file the next morning and discovering the data was not there, the same file I had saved the night before.

I have had to be away, because I had to work double shifts to get my customers project back on track. That is money I don’t get paid, time spent doing something that I would have otherwise spent it with my kids or family. This upsets me greatly and burns me out… so hopefully this gets fixed somehow…

I’m still looking into the cause, it’s hard to replicate and track and could be something at the OS level regarding synced drives and permissions.

I’ve seen scattered reports but only with iCloud synced drives.

When I have more info, I’ll update your ticket.

My advice in general is, always make sure you have a backup system that works. Any app can crash and any computer can fail without warning.

But you are absolutely correct, Blocs shouldn’t do it, neither should Photoshop or illustrator, software developed for years by a team of developers, but they do (almost once a week for me).

Because of the nature of how frequently computer Operating Systems are updated now, things can just break in software that worked fine 1 version back.

So I agree with you and will do my best to protect Blocs users from such events, but also get your backup System bullet proof too. I’d be out of business and Blocs wouldn’t exist, if I didn’t have multiple backup systems.

I’ve done a lot of testing and implemented various fail safes into the latest version of Blocs (3.5. beta 2) to try and narrow down the root of this random type of glitch.

Blocs should now notify you when the save fails (which will help me track down the exact cause) . There are also patches to prevent the save as issue that doesn’t offer you a location window (which is related to the initial save crash).

Again sorry for the problems and bad experience :pensive:

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