I think I am going to cry!

[rod.74246]

Okay, here is a classic example of how to be a complete idiot when using Revit. Guess the moral of the story is do a little bit of research before doing anything drastic.

Well i have been working away for about 8 hours so far and being the gung - ho Revit legend i think I am, was editing families and re-loading into a Project as fast as you would ever think possible. ( I love that feature.) Anyways, did some tweaking to a family and didn't want to save it back to our library file so loaded it into the Project and hit "don't save changes". That was the point at which my heart jumped into my throat as i realized that was actually the Project file i just shut.

"Oh ****!!, When did i last save!!"
( See i have this problem that my Revit never crashes, ...not once. Maybe thats good programming and all, but it really gets me into the bad habit of every half an hour when that little message pops up, just hitting "don't save" and keeping on working. I really hate being interrupted in the middle of something by annoying auto messages.)

Anyway, I checked my last save. Yep was about an hour ago. Of course that isn't too bad. Its always quicker the second time round. Can't really blame Revit for this one.

At this point I kinda remembered about the little journal file thing i had been reading about. Of course my problem was I hadn't really read too much about it, about all i bothered to really pay any attention to was the fact it can rebuild your entire days work and all i have to do is drop the journal file on my Revit Icon.

"Bloody brilliant!" I think to myself. "This is the ticket... Revit to the rescue once again!!!"

So i drop my little journal file, on to my little Revit icon and sit back smiling as i watch Revit opening up files and drawing lines and zipping around the screen just like i was doing about 8 hours ago. Of course its moving pretty quick too, almost as quick as me cause (as i said before),I really got the hang of this program now so i must be a super quick legend.

Now I hear you all thinking as you read this.......

"Did you create a backup of your last Project file?"..... err. No.

"Did you rename the original back-up file from this morning wen you first started?"...err, no not really.

"Did you not realise that the journal will **** itself out when it tries to open up families"...well actually no i didn't.


See these were probably very good questions to ask, but hell i am a "jump in boots and all" kinda guy.

Well anyway, long and the short of it is that funnily enough i opened up my first family this morning about 20 minutes into the day. Thats right where i got the journal error. Whats even more hilarious is that even though i hadn't saved for an hour, apparently i saved 5 times this morning prior to opening the family. So guess what?

I HAVE NOW LOST 8 HOURS WORK!!!

Yep it overwrote all my old backups. See the strange thing is it actually makes sense to me why it has done it, not that i thought of it at the time. Guess the moral of the story is that a lot of knowledge is great, a little knowledge is ******* dangerous. (So much for the Revit legend.)

Well anyway unless someone has some bright ideas, I am going to go cry now. I knew i shouldn't have got out of bed this morning. In fact i really shouldn't have bothered.

Well, at least i hope sharing my little tale has made someone else feel better about their awful day.

[jbalding48677]

If you opening up and sharing your story globally can save one, just ONE, poor soul from repeating this terrible tragedy; it will be worth all your efforts.

Thanks Rod -

- JB

P.S. Are you coming to AU? I would love to put that avatar on a sticker!!!

[jvoight]

This is why I have set my save reminder to at least one hour. I end up saving more times than if it reminded me every 30 min.

[luigi]

This is why I have set my save reminder to at least one hour. I end up saving more times than if it reminded me every 30 min.Hey, you look like a certain actor....Magnum PI?????

[Wes Macaulay]

Hey, you look like a certain actor....Magnum PI?????Didn't you know? Tom Selleck is a power Revit user...

[jvoight]

Since Magnum P.I. i've been hurting for cash. So now I'm using revit.



http://jimvoights.smugmug.com/photos/37059274-M.jpg

[bowlingbrad]

As you can see, Revit users get paid enough to afford a Ferrari

[cosmickingpin]

One word. "DAMN!" Speaking as a moderately experienced Revit user, I recommend intoxicating beverages at this point for you and you relocating yourself to an establishment which serves them. There are some problems liquor can't fix, but then again there are some it can't hurt. One more time. "DAMN!" I thought I was unlucky sometimes. two choices, cry or drink.

[Adam Mac]

LOL - great thread....!

This one has it all - sad, cruel opening with a bit of comedy thrown in
and ends with "the guy at the bar crying into his beer" scene.

Or it could just be my imagination.

[irwin]

Well anyway, long and the short of it is that funnily enough i opened up my first family this morning about 20 minutes into the day. Thats right where i got the journal error. Whats even more hilarious is that even though i hadn't saved for an hour, apparently i saved 5 times this morning prior to opening the family. So guess what?

I HAVE NOW LOST 8 HOURS WORK!!!

Yep it overwrote all my old backups.
Sorry, Rod. I know lost work can be frustrating regardless of who's error causes it. I hope the following won't make it worse, but it's important for everyone to understand something about how Revit backups work.

When Revit purges backups during save, it makes sure to keep the version of the file that you opened (this applies to all files except Workset central files). If I understand correctly what you did then I think that means that after you ran the journal the oldest backup remaining should have been the one that you had when you started running the journal. That's the one that had everything except the last hour, not further corrupted by running the journal file.

Let me explain Revit's purge behavior more specifically with an example. Suppose you have backups set to 3. You start your session with, say, file.rvt, file.0009.rvt, file.0010.rvt, and file.0011.rvt. Implicitly, the current version of file.rvt is file.0012.rvt since that's the next backup. Let's say you save ten times during your session. When you're done, you'll have file.rvt, file.0021.rvt, file.0020.rvt, file.0019.rvt, and file.0012.rvt. That's right -- the original file.rvt has been saved as file.0012.rvt and it is kept even if Revit is otherwise purging backups up to file.0018.rvt. The reason it does this is that we wanted extra protection against some (hypothetical) horrible combination of errors that would cause all of the files that Revit writes in the session to be corrupt; you are guaranteed to have a version of the file that opens -- we know it opens because you opened it at the start of your session.

In the above example, if you close the file, open it again, and save then it will delete file.0012.rvt as the first backup it gets rid of, but it will keep file.0022.rvt (the version you opened the second time) no matter how many times you save before closing the file.

[Prodev75]

I'm officially passing the "I SCREWED UP" award on to you. I've held on to it for quite some time now. I will miss it but I have a feeling I will come back to me in the near future.

LOL

Please feel free to past it on to your fellow employees as I have in the past.

[Steve_Stafford]

So we should see this file.0012.rvt in the folder?

With:
file.rvt
file.0019.rvt
file.0020.rvt
file.0021.rvt

[Mr Spot]

So we should see this file.0012.rvt in the folder?

With:
file.rvt
file.0019.rvt
file.0020.rvt
file.0021.rvt
hmm yeah where is this special file kept, for future reference?

[truevis]

I did something similar but simpler last year. I had some kind of corruption in my file. I kept trying things to uncorrupt it, saving each time. Thus, I overwrote the 5 backups I had which included the last good version.

Had to go to an IT guy and get the previous day's file that had been archived-- yuck.

[irwin]

hmm yeah where is this special file kept, for future reference?
It's there with all the others. Try opening an rvt and saving it a bunch of times and you'll see it.

[rod.74246]

Thanks for the support guys!! I did think that hopefully someone will get little warning from the thread, I find it really easy to become complacent and its good to get a jolt back to reality with a good, old-fashioned, utterly stupid ****-up.

Just to let you all know. I did drink a copius amount of wine that night and came in the next morning and re-did the lot while swearing the whole time.. (Think i must have saved about every 3 minutes.)

Hell i'd love to go to AU but the 14 hour plane ride and the exchange rate to $AUS dollars just makes it a killer.