Why is the auto-recover feature so bad?

[vladimirbmp]

I have it set to save every 5 minutes and yet it never actually saves anything.

I just had a crash which resulted in a file becoming corrupt:

And there was no auto-recover option when I launched PS, nor are there any files in the auto-recover folder. I lost hours of work.

Why doesn't Photoshop simply keep a duplicate file that autosave every X minutes that you can open in case something like this happens? What is the purpose of the auto-recover thing, how do I actually make it work?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@vladimirbmp Auto recovery happens when Photoshop crashes with a crash report - ie. the application caused the crash. If your computer fails completely or another external factor caused the crash without a crash report, the auto recovery will not initiate.

[vladimirbmp]

@Kevin Stohlmeyer Is there any info on the reasoning behind that? I think we can all agree that's just - bad. So many other programs handle autosaves the way I described - it seems to be both simpler and superior, specifically because the file is recoverable no matter what caused the crash. Blender for example maintains a parallel .blend1 file as a backup + autosave copies of the file in a temp folder. Even After Effects has that autosave system. Why not Photoshop?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

I have no insight into specifics but I can say file size and disk space are big considerations.

[D Fosse]

It's possible that it doesn't work if there is some problem with permissions to the Windows user account. PS recovery is in the Windows TEMP directory, which is in the user account > Appdata > Local.

From time to time we see cases where user account files and folders aren't correctly written to. Another example of this is when PS preferences get reset with every launch. It doesn't happen often, but we see it regularly.

You can try to right-click the PS icon and "run as administrator". It should be enough to do it once.

My understanding of Autorecovery is that it should work in any situation where Photoshop doesn't have time for an orderly shutdown sequence. In that shutdown sequence, the Autorecovery folder is flushed. When Photoshop starts up, it looks in this folder and if there is something there, it opens. Normally there won't be anything there. I haven't seen a crash in many years, so this is just what I read.

@vladimirbmp , there's no point in looking inside this folder. If there's anything there, it will open automatically, without any intervention from you.

Oh, almost forgot: the file has to be saved to disk at least once for the process to initiate. A file that isn't saved will never autorecover.

[vladimirbmp]

@D Fosse if the auto-recover folder only gets wiped during the proper shutdown sequence of Photoshop, then that's further proof to me that it never actually saved anything in there (the file was saved multiple times before the crash). I will look into the 'run as admin' option, nevertheless, it seems like something Photoshop should be able to diagnose and warn the user about. Autosave not working properly should definitely be popup-worthy. Thanks for the advice!