I just lost a scene

seun · Nov 20, 2010

Either I'm going a bit strange in my old age or I've lost a scene I wrote a couple of nights ago. It's not in the main document, the backups or the copy I email to myself. It's just...gone. The other work I saved on the same night is still there, but this entire scene has vanished. :Shrug:

Anyone else had this happen to them or is it just me going mad?

RobJ · Nov 20, 2010

Not me, and if that's what's happened then I sympathise. Maybe you can write it again, it'll still be relatively fresh in your mind.

SPMiller · Nov 20, 2010

Is it possible you opened and worked with a different file for the duration of that scene? Probably not, but worth asking.

seun · Nov 20, 2010

I'm more annoyed by how strange this is. It wasn't a huge chunk of work and I can redo it, but it's pissing me off that this doesn't make sense. I wrote it so where the hell is it? :rant:

seun · Nov 20, 2010

SPMiller said:
Is it possible you opened and worked with a different file for the duration of that scene? Probably not, but worth asking.

I did wonder that and have checked an older copy. Not in there, either.

thothguard51 · Nov 20, 2010

I have had this happen in the past, way too much.

Never did find them or figure out what happened. More than likely when I was closing out I did not pay attention to what I was doing and saved in a new file or just X out.

Have you tried the search feature, using file extension type and date?

This is partially why I now work in the clouds, from by drop box files and I have not had a single mishap. I still back up once a week to my various devices, sometimes daily if I did a lot of work.

Sorry to hear about the loss, never fun losing ones work...

SPMiller · Nov 20, 2010

Generally speaking, writes to secondary storage are queued by your OS and will happen at some point before shutdown, but they're not guaranteed to go through at any particular time. There are a few failure cases that could contribute to failed writes, such as a hardware crash ("reset") or yanking out a flash drive from its USB port without first explicitly unmounting it.

seun · Nov 20, 2010

thothguard51 said:
I have had this happen in the past, way too much.

Never did find them or figure out what happened. More than likely when I was closing out I did not pay attention to what I was doing and saved in a new file or just X out.

Have you tried the search feature, using file extension type and date?

I've had a search and checked the copy I was working on at the time. It's as it should be - apart from the missing scene. My autosave is set for every couple of minutes, but even so, this scene now appears to be in the Twilight Zone. Either that or I've done something really stupid.

ETA: OK. Now I'm even more annoyed. The document isn't as it should be. The changes I made to two other scenes haven't saved.

Bollocks.

Tirjasdyn · Nov 20, 2010

This is why I write in yWriter. I have my scenes layed out and back ups when opening, closing and every five minutes. And if I still happen to lose a scene my notes are still there.

That and I never ever ever work off a Usb, sd card or external drive. Save then copy to backup media.

Margarita Skies · Nov 20, 2010

seun said:
I've had a search and checked the copy I was working on at the time. It's as it should be - apart from the missing scene. My autosave is set for every couple of minutes, but even so, this scene now appears to be in the Twilight Zone. Either that or I've done something really stupid.

ETA: OK. Now I'm even more annoyed. The document isn't as it should be. The changes I made to two other scenes haven't saved.

Bollocks.

But you can fix it, right?

BradCarsten · Nov 20, 2010

This happened to me before, I once selected a chunk of text and overwrote it when I started typing again. don't know how it happened, but it did. fortunately I realised what had happened, and saved all my edits to a new file, then undid until I got the text back.

Something else that also happened once, is that I saved my backup from my flash drive over my original, instead of the other way round. I now create a new file every day, and never overwrite anything.

Matera the Mad · Nov 20, 2010

I. Never. Write. In. Word. All I lose are single words and random punctuation. Dunno where it goes! :ROFL:

I have had some problems at work, where I have to use Word because the stuff I need to edit is already in Word

Nickie · Nov 21, 2010

What I know from years using various computers and more than one program, is that there can be trouble when you write on two or more pc's and your Word is different (2003, 2007, ...) I sometimes wrote pieces on my laptop, which had a newer Word version, and then I could not read it on my other pc. The problem was solved when the pc crashed and I solely work on the laptop.
Which makes me think of something that might give an explanation. I don't know about you, but I find that typing on a laptop is a lot more difficult than on a normal keyboard. Every time I do this my fingers involuntarily touch keys I don't need. Perhaps you hit the 'delay button by accident?

Nickie

seun · Nov 21, 2010

Magali said:
But you can fix it, right?

Doesn't look like there's anything to fix. It's all just gone.

I can rewrite it. Just annoying that there's no obvious reason for it.

Manuel Royal · Nov 21, 2010

As a last resort, I'd try doing a search of the whole hard drive, looking for a character string that you know should be in the missing part. Can't hurt. (I've occasionally saved a file to entirely the wrong directory, with no memory of doing so.)

seun · Nov 21, 2010

Manuel Royal said:
As a last resort, I'd try doing a search of the whole hard drive, looking for a character string that you know should be in the missing part.

Yep, tried that. No joy. I figure I either made some complete cock up or I've gone mad.

Margarita Skies · Nov 21, 2010

Matera the Mad said:
I. Never. Write. In. Word. All I lose are single words and random punctuation. Dunno where it goes!

I have had some problems at work, where I have to use Word because the stuff I need to edit is already in Word

What's the best program to write in to keep that from happening? That hasn't happened to me since I've used Word 2007, but recommend another program, please.

Margarita Skies · Nov 21, 2010

seun said:
Doesn't look like there's anything to fix. It's all just gone.

I can rewrite it. Just annoying that there's no obvious reason for it.

If that's your only choice go ahead and rewrite. From my experience, when you lose something, or something you wrote is there, but unusable, like some of the projects I am rewriting right now, usually the new version turns out much better than the old. I didn't lose the story I am currently rewriting. It just became unusable because I made the mistake of publishing it POD, but I am glad that happened because I love the new version of the first book of that series better than the original. Try it and you'll see what I mean.

Don't despair. I am here to support you. We all are.

Margarita Skies · Nov 21, 2010

a-vee said:
Just in case you have deleted it by mistake, you can try downloading a recovery software from here

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

That's true, but you also have to be aware, Seun, that the longer it's been since the file has been deleted, the less chances you have to recover it, so if you're going to do this, do it as soon as possible.

kurzon · Nov 21, 2010

seun said:
Either I'm going a bit strange in my old age or I've lost a scene I wrote a couple of nights ago. It's not in the main document, the backups or the copy I email to myself. It's just...gone. The other work I saved on the same night is still there, but this entire scene has vanished.

Anyone else had this happen to them or is it just me going mad?

Any chance you launched the document from email, and worked on the launched version? That's the most common reason I've encountered for people losing edits altogether, since saves of an email-launched version generally go in a mysterious temp folder and are difficult to re-locate.

I found four paragraphs missing from a work I'm finalising, and so far as I can tell they went missing because I accidentally deleted them

Glad I caught the gap, though!

LunaFancy · Nov 21, 2010

The same thing happened to me last week. I lost an entire days work. The save function in word just didn't work for some reason.

I didn't realise til the next day when I opened the doc and it appeared that it had not been touched at all the day before.

I'm anal about backups too (something about losing a chunk of PhD the day before presentation) and had backed up to usb as well as having autosave going and hitting the save button manually (I mentioned anal right?)

I hope your rewrite is smoother than mine, it took me well into the night to get it done because I was certain everything sucked in comparison the the original effort.

It was a truly horrible experience - Luckily I bought a new laptop two days before, after the old one crashed three times in half an hour, and only had to wait another day for it to arrive!

seun · Nov 22, 2010

a-vee said:
Just in case you have deleted it by mistake, you can try downloading a recovery software from here

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Could be worth a go. I have cleanup software from the same site. The joke's on me if that wiped it permanently. :ROFL:

seun · Nov 22, 2010

kurzon said:
Any chance you launched the document from email, and worked on the launched version?

That would explain it, but it was definitely the original version.

Terie · Nov 22, 2010

seun said:
That would explain it, but it was definitely the original version.

If this is a possibility, have you checked your temp folders? You might find the version there. Windows systems have several temp folders, so check them all.

seun · Nov 22, 2010

Terie said:
If this is a possibility, have you checked your temp folders? You might find the version there. Windows systems have several temp folders, so check them all.

I did have a look the other day, but it could be worth me checking again. I was so annoyed, I may have missed it. I'll have another look tonight.

I just lost a scene

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