Lost User Tool Updates

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

I was adding content to a User Tool today, updating frequently along the way. On one attempt to update, I got an error that Accordance did not recognize a book name in a Scripture link. I had misspelled the book name. I corrected it, and hit "update." The little update box with the progress bar came up briefly, but with no blue progress line. It disappeared almost immediately, and the "update" button was still clickable, not greyed out as usual when an update is successful. I tried clicking "Update" and/or command-S several times, always with the same result.

 

Finally, I clicked on the red close button at the top left of the window. I got a warning dialog that my changes had not been saved; did I want to update? I said yes, I wanted to update. Same result: brief flash of the update progress window with no blue, then disappeared. Only this time the entire edit window disappeared as well.

 

Much to my dismay, NONE of the changes I made today were saved to the User Tool; this is despite the fact that I had updated the tool from the Edit Window multiple times without any problems before the errors began. I had had the presence of mind to copy the most recently added text before closing the window, but I never dreamed that I should copy the text that had already been successfully (I thought) updated.

 

Any idea why this happened? How can I prevent it in the future?

 

Some details that may (or may not) be relevant

Accordance version 7.1

Mac OS 10.4.8 (PPC)

 

I have had a similar, though not identical issue in the past, described in this thread. So I checked my user tools folder in finder for ... files. I found some for another User Tool I use frequently, but there were none for the User Tool I was working with today. As a test, I updated a third user tool, and checked the folder in finder and found no ... files for it, either, but it updated correctly. (This was after quitting and restarting Accordance)

 

The User Tool I was editing today was one I probably haven't touched since before I upgraded to 7.1.

[Helen Brown]

Lorinda:

 

I am sorry about the lost work. You really push user tools to their limits, I think. We cannot look for problems like this unless they are reproducible. You are correct that if you update successfully, that should be saved. The tool does not "revert" to an earlier version, but I suspect the file was already corrupt when you started working on it.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

Thanks for a quick response, Helen. Fortunately I only lost one page of handwritten notes, which I have now successfully reentered.

 

I understand about the reproducibility issue. If it happens again, I'll see if I can isolate the steps and reproduce the error.

 

I wouldn't think of this particular User Tool as "pushing the limits." It's only 36 KB; it's a series of Word Studies done by a pastor friend of mine; today's additions are only the third "word" I've entered.

 

That said, I would agree that there have been times I've been a bit too ambitious about what I can really do with User Tools.

 

 

Two more pieces of info, in case this ever becomes reproducible:

 

Now when I update, I get the ".." files in my User Tools folder after an update of this User Tool.

 

Accordance had been running in the background for a long time (at least 12 hours), and I've had a lot of apps open. That may be a factor as well.