RPTools.net

First, let me say that I am aware that Autosaves only last until the session is properly closed.

So, I have my "Preferences>Application>Campaign autosave every" set to 10 minutes. Several times now, MT has crashed (not close together, it just happens sometimes), but there was nothing in the Autosave Folder except a blank map that is automatically created upon opening MT or a barely altered or completely unaltered campaign. Initially, I assumed this was some mistake on my part and just kicked myself and moved on, but after this last crash (where I lost 2 hours of campaign design), I decided to look into it some more. What I found was that, for whatever reason, MapTools is only making one Autosave at the first increment (10 minutes) and then not doing it again. Is this intentional or do I need to change a setting?

Also, would anyone know of a convenient way to create permanent autosaves? Such as a way to create a real-time copy of the autosave folder automatically?

SzassT wrote:So, I have my "Preferences>Application>Campaign autosave every" set to 10 minutes. Several times now, MT has crashed (not close together, it just happens sometimes), but there was nothing in the Autosave Folder except a blank map that is automatically created upon opening MT or a barely altered or completely unaltered campaign. Initially, I assumed this was some mistake on my part and just kicked myself and moved on, but after this last crash (where I lost 2 hours of campaign design), I decided to look into it some more. What I found was that, for whatever reason, MapTools is only making one Autosave at the first increment (10 minutes) and then not doing it again. Is this intentional or do I need to change a setting?

First, this is not the way it should be working. Please provide your Help>Gather Debug information.

Second, MT should not be crashing like that. Your debug info might explain it. But you might want to turn on logging in the launcher and see if it notices something going on.

Also, would anyone know of a convenient way to create permanent autosaves? Such as a way to create a real-time copy of the autosave folder automatically?

You could try mirroring the autosave directory to a dropbox account... and then when it deletes the autosave on exit I think dropbox will actually keep a copy of it for 30 days and you might be able to recover it that way.

Full Bleed wrote:

SzassT wrote:

Also, would anyone know of a convenient way to create permanent autosaves? Such as a way to create a real-time copy of the autosave folder automatically?

You could try mirroring the autosave directory to a dropbox account... and then when it deletes the autosave on exit I think dropbox will actually keep a copy of it for 30 days and you might be able to recover it that way.

I have no experience with DropBox, so it may well work. But with Google Drive, it may give you fits. It doesn't play well with other programs. If I try to save (manually, but I expect it'd be the same with Autosave) while Drive is synching, either Drive will crash (and stop syncing) or (more likely) Windows will end up with a lock on the .cmpgn file that prevents MT from accessing it at all. (I'm not sure if Drive can at that point.) And, IIRC, I can't rename or delete the file through Windows Explorer. The quick fix is to delete stuff in one of the directories in the .maptool folder (which Drive doesn't touch - very weird). The real fix is a reboot.

So, I guess my point is this: don't trust this until you have tested it thoroughly. Cloud storage is darned useful, but not perfect.

Autosaves haven't been working properly for me for a long time, probably since 1.4. I have it set to autosave every 15, but it usually just autosaves one time 15 minutes after I save it and then that's it. I just assumed they were broken for everyone.

paulstrait wrote:Autosaves haven't been working properly for me for a long time, probably since 1.4. I have it set to autosave every 15, but it usually just autosaves one time 15 minutes after I save it and then that's it. I just assumed they were broken for everyone.

Verified with 1.4.0.2. The Autosave Chatlog is saving properly, but only the first Campaign Autosave is working.

taustinoc wrote: I have no experience with DropBox, so it may well work. But with Google Drive, it may give you fits. It doesn't play well with other programs. If I try to save (manually, but I expect it'd be the same with Autosave) while Drive is synching, either Drive will crash (and stop syncing) or (more likely) Windows will end up with a lock on the .cmpgn file that prevents MT from accessing it at all. (I'm not sure if Drive can at that point.) And, IIRC, I can't rename or delete the file through Windows Explorer. The quick fix is to delete stuff in one of the directories in the .maptool folder (which Drive doesn't touch - very weird). The real fix is a reboot.

So, I guess my point is this: don't trust this until you have tested it thoroughly. Cloud storage is darned useful, but not perfect.

Ive never experienced such an issue in dropbox and im using it (also in that context) for years now.

wolph42 wrote:Ive never experienced such an issue in dropbox and im using it (also in that context) for years now.

That's good to hear. Out of curiosity, do you often deal with large, large .cmpgn files? (I suspect you do, but I wanted to ask because this mostly happens to me when the save file is quite large, dozens of megabytes, and it's worse at work where the internet connection is slower and the sync takes a long time.)

I do have some campaigns around 50+ mb on dropbox, no problem.

That's good to know. Sadly, their free accounts seem to be 2 GB, which is about 2% of what I am currently using, and as best I can tell, their cheapest paid account is 2TB at over 3 times the cost of Drive. Their web site is very uninformative. I can't even tell if they still offer non-free personal accounts.