Disapearing files in Animate

[greggh36425459]

MacOS 10.13.6

Animate 20.0.1

I just started using Animate a few months ago. Had a couple experiences saving a file as something else, and seeing files disapear from a folder when I first started. I couldnt duplicate the issue on purpose and chalked it up to something werid I was doing saving that confused it or straight human error... Keep in mind Ive been doing graphics on computers since beta version of Illustrator (yes...), so I am not a newbie to file management. 

Just had a case where I had a diredctory structure with a folder named Digital Ads with 1 folder (Ad Series 1), inside that folder were 4 folders (for 4 ad sizes) and 4 fla documents. All docs were setup to publish into the correct dorectory. All was good, went thru mutlitple revisions, publishing etc over about a week and a half.

Final changes done earlier today. Just now I open one of the fla files and went to save it as an animated gif, selected settings, selected the location as the root directory (the dorectory with the Ad Series 1 folder) and clicked save. Chug chug...theres the gif file. No prob.

Went to export as a movie, the default location said ...Documents/the files name so I thought whatever, I can move it out of there easy enough and clicked save. It started chewing, launched the encoder app and then gave me an error saying the original fla file couldnt be found. Weird. I look at the directory and the "Ad Series 1" folder is gone.

The gif version is there, that folder and everything else gone. Not moved, not in the trash can. Gone. Nowhere on my system. Exactly like the the problem I had before, and I was exporting movies then as well. Im a seasoned user and have backups and I lose a couple hours of work, but something about saving to a movie, changing paths and file names somehow made it remove an entire directory without a trace.

[greggh36425459]

After posting I saw this post: 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/animate/exporting-issues-in-animate/td-p/10732088

That is the message I got right before it swollowed my directory.

[n. tilcheff]

Hi mate, 

Sounds terrible!

There have been a few reports such as yours recently. 

You've already seen one of the threads.

If Animate is not deleting folders and files, could it be that it triggers a false positive and an anti-virus program deletes (or moves them to quarantine) without any warning?

Would a file recovery software still be able to restore the file?

Does this only happen on Mac?

Just thinking out loud...

Glad you are an experienced user and had backups. Many who come here are kids who have lost weeks of work.

[greggh36425459]

The process of saving a movie, cumbersome save interface. My first try was to the Documents with three the permission error. Then I must have clicked the destination as the root folder tat was deleted without a trace.

I think the real issue is the interface wasn’t clear about what was going to happen. It shouldn’t make you pick a folder for images, just a destination for the resulting movie file. All the frames should go into a temp folder setup in preferences or something with an over ride in each document.

A warning saying “Are you sure you want to delete the entire contents of XXX folder?” would go a long way.