After Effects CC2019 not autosaving

Report · Nov 16, 2018

Hi,

I've been using the latest version for a week or so. Just an hour ago, I had an electrical problem and my project went corrupt ( "After Effects Error - Missing data file 33::4" when I try to open it. Can't import it into another project either).

So I went for the autosaved versions and... they're not there. Autosave is enabled, set to 20 minutes and "next to project" location. But the most recent files are more than a week old, from when I was using the CC 2018 version. They're not in the default location either.

I manually backed up a version yesterday, but I'm going to lose all work I did today.

Is there anything I'm missing? Could the files be somewhere else?

Thanks

Report · Nov 16, 2018

What Operating system are you running on?
If you are on MAC it can happened beacuse of folder permissions issues (I'm not to frequent mac user so I can't give you specifics but I know that user folder permissions on system side can cause auto saving issues).
If you are on windows it can be two things:
- your project was converted from older version and as that - AE see trhat as unnamed project and not autosave
- you make to often manual saves (ctrl+S) - AE counts autosave every (in your case) 20 minutes counted from last save so if you press ctrl+S more often than every 20 minutes - AE will save only your original copy - not autosaves (happened to me so I learned the hard way to when I have Auto save turned on - not to press ctrl+S to often.

And general rule that I have. Despite of my frequent manual saves, and auto save working, I'm making incremental save every so often after bigger changes in project.

Report · Nov 16, 2018

I'm on Windows.

It must be that I Control+S too often. That's ridiculous! One of the reasons I tell autosave to keep 5 versions is that I can go back if I mess up or one of them goes corrupt. So if you save too often you lose that ability? Isn't that a design flaw?

Yes, I will use incremental saves from now on.

Thanks for your help.

God...

Report · Nov 16, 2018

In my opinion - No. F. eg. You set Ae to backup every 5 minutes ... but you save your project every 3 minutes and because of that AE have no time (5 min) to run autosave beacuse. Autosave start coundown of that minutes from last save so if you don't let that 5 min countdown go to 0 - AE will not save.
As I said previously - I learned that the hard way several years ago and I had to rebuild almost 2 days of AE work and now I know - that is just how AE works and we have to live with that

Report · Nov 16, 2018

I understand why, but I don't think it's the right approach.

I just realised incremental saves create a new file for the curent version, not the previous one, so you lose the dynamic link from Premiere... not ideal. I'll stick to copypasting files around.

Report · Jan 23, 2019

It has really stopped saving no matter how often you save manually. Since the last update. It hasn't created the folder, it does not save. Everything is set as it should be in prefs. (Windows)

Report · Jan 24, 2019

Having same problem. On Mac OS 10.14.2, AE version 16.0.1 (Build 48). Have it set to Auto-Save every 6 minutes next to project.

To test, I saved project, made a change within the project and then left it for 20 minutes. Nothing.

Seems like a pretty basic functionality to have. Even this post auto-saves...

Report · Feb 26, 2019

Autosaves for me are very erratic. Most often, I get one at the interval set in Preference but then no more. Sometimes none at all.

I just got a second autosave after 13 minutes with the interval set to 5 and no manual saves in between.

Report · Mar 16, 2019

Because I couldn't rely on AE's autosave feature and lost a few projects, I created a while back a simple script which saves the project and then it duplicates the file in the same location, adding a prefix to it's name.

You have the option for how many back-ups to keep and what prefix it should use.

So, instead of regularly hitting ctrl/cmd + s I just press a button in the script's interface for more than a year now and never lost a project since.

Yesterday had a BSOD and again the original .aep with it's back-up file got corrupted but I had a previous back-up file so I only lost a couple of minutes of work.

Set it to do at least 3 back-ups and you should be fine (I'm doing 5).

Copy the .jsxbin to '.../Support files/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels', launch it from 'Window/BackupAE_v1.0.0', dock it and smash that blue button.

I'll probably share it soon on aescripts too as 'pay what you want' along with a couple of other (helpful, hopefully) scripts and extensions.

BackupAE_v1.0.0: bit.ly/BackupAE

Cheers,

Alex Munteanu

Report · Oct 10, 2023

Hi, can I ask you to upload this script again please)?