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meredithshort
meredithshort
Participant
July 24, 2019
Question

Auto files - Sweet mercy, with the auto files

  • July 24, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 319 views

Hey friends. I'm working on a monster (2000 page) document which has any number of idiosyncrasies, but the newest is a new auto file is generated EVERY time I save. So every time I saved "Chapter 04.fm" I got a popup saying the file had been changed since it last opened (duh, since I was saving it). When I finally closed for the days, I had about 200 auto files that looked like this:

Chapter 04.auto.fm.auto.4AF.CB5

It didn't have the brown and orange FM icon next to it but I archived the Chapter 4.fm (from 7:15 this morning), deleted the rest of them, and renamed the above to Chapter 04.fm. It appears to be fine and opens without issue but come on! ANOTHER auto file is created.

What is going on here? Any idea?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 24, 2019

    Hi Meredith:

    FrameMaker has three auto-save formats:

    1. Automatic backup on save
    2. Timed auto-save (which does use the .auto in the filename)
    3. Recover file when you crash

    None of them use quite this format: "Chapter 04.auto.fm.auto.4AF.CB5". Are you working off dropbox directly, or another file sharing server? I've learned I can't work on dropbox directly like I can with InDesign because of the saving that goes on in the background with odd filenames that disrupt my book updates.

    Can you work on your local drive? And/or disable the timed auto-save in preferences?

    ~Barb

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    W
    Community Expert
    Winfried RengCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 25, 2019

    Hi,

    I think that the auto save (timed) cannot complete the save operation.

    Then it wants to start a new auto save and creates another file.

    What happens, when you just make a copy and name it Chapter 04.auto.fm?

    Do you have any graphics in your file? Does it make any difference, when you hide all graphics (View | Options)?

    As Barb said, can you work on a local drive?

    Or switch off the timed auto save (Edit | Preferences) or at least set the time to a higher value, e.g. 15 minutes.

    When you open a file, cross-references are checked and updated. Therefore the file is changed. You could also suppress the automatic update (Edit | Update References, Commands).

    Best regards

    Winfried

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