Customer has the following Solid Edge Save options set:
- Automatically preserve documents
- Creating uniquely named backup copies of unsaved documents every 60 minutes
- Backup Models
- Backup Drafts
File location is set to C:\sebackup and is writeable.
After working for a period of time Solid Edge suddenly crashes but there is no backup file in the backup file to recover from, or the backup file is not saved to a point that I expect it to be saved to, or I only see assembly .cfg files. Why?
Solution
This is currently working as designed. You have a misguided expectation for how the "Automatically preserve documents" option actually works.
The option "Creating uniquely named backup copies of unsaved documents every X minutes" is confusing as this appears to imply that a new backup copy of the file should be saved every X minutes with a unique filename every time on the X minute save. However this is not what this option really means. What this option really means is that it will create a single file of a unique name in the specified folder location and then continually save to this one file name every X minutes overwriting the previous version of the backup file.
The reason we create a unique filename is that if you have two model files open within in the same Solid Edge session i.e. you have two geometrically different model1.par files in different folders open within the same Solid Edge session. It would be impossible for the automatic backup copies to write both of these same named but geometrically different model1.par files to the same backup folder as they would be continuously overwriting each other's backup up file copy. Therefore in order to work around this potential file name collision we assign each working file its own unique backup filename within the common backup folder location.
Furthermore if we did create a new unique filename with every backup save on the X minute e.g. model1_60min_save.par, model1_120min_save.par, etc. we would have the potential to quickly fill up the hard drive with multiple backups of the same file then resulting in crashing both Solid Edge and the workstation because of disk full issues. Therefore this is definitely an undesirable affect that we intentionally avoid.
Further, the first backup file is not made until after the Solid Edge file is saved at least one time. If you open the Solid Edge file, make various geometry changes, but have not saved the file the first time after initially opening, the file is not backed up as the original geometry is still available in the original file if the changes are not saved. Once the file is saved, then the backup timer is then started, and backups are then created from that point.
Furthermore the reason why you do not see a backup file actually created every X minutes is that we attempt to apply some intelligence to the backup before saving. If there have been no geometry changes made to the file in X minutes since the last save we do not automatically save another backup copy of the file overwriting the same already uniquely assigned backup file. We will only save every X minutes if there have been physical geometry changes made during that time. Therefore simply setting this option, saving the working file and then waiting the X minutes for the next backup copy to be saved will not work as there are no geometry changes to backup. This is by design to reduce the amount of times we have to track and save out the backup file. There is no point saving a backup file every X minutes if Solid Edge has been sitting idle and no geometrical changes have been made to the file. Otherwise you could potentially lose your last geometrical changes in the backup file i.e. I save my working file, make some geometry changes and then after X minutes my backup file is saved capturing the model in a different geometrical state. I then go for a coffee break and Solid Edge is sitting idle for another X minutes. You then do not want Solid Edge automatically making another backup copy of no geometry changes after X minutes overwriting the previous backup containing geometry changes. This is why you do not automatically see a backup copy created every X minutes.
While working in the file and making changes, whenever you next save the file, the backup file is then automatically removed and the timer reset. As explained above, until a geometry change is then detected a new backup file will then be created.
Once you cleanly exit the working file the associated backup file is automatically removed. If you were to intentionally crash Solid Edge by terminating the edge.exe process in Task Manager instead of cleanly exiting the file, then your backup file would still exist, assuming all the above outlined conditions have been met i.e. saving Solid Edge the first time to start the timer and subsequent geometric changes made. This then would allow you to recover "lost" work, which is your expectation.
So, to your specific scenario, If you have enabled "Automatic Document Preservation" for every 60 minutes, using my above description, if your user is working in an assembly and then saves the assembly but does not exit the assembly, the automatic backup file is reset and the backup file on disk deleted. If your engineer then goes to a meeting that lasts longer than 60 minutes, because Solid Edge has detected no changes in the assembly no new backup file is created. Then your engineer returns to his desk and suddenly Solid Edge crashes corrupting the working file before any geometric changes have been made to the file. Unfortunately in this scenario there will then be *no* backup file for your engineer to try to recover from.
As to you only having .cfg files in the backup folder location, I see an issue with our implementation in that when we save the working assembly file and remove the backup assembly file (as per the description outlined above) we are then not automatically removing the associated .cfg file. This is not expected and should really be addressed. However, this itself is not an indicator that the "Automatic Document Preservation" is not working. There should be no Solid Edge files in this backup folder upon cleanly saving a file or exiting Solid Edge.
All of this can be easily tested by setting your Solid Edge Options to save every 1 minute then working through the scenario while monitoring your backup folder location in Windows Explorer. As you save your working file and make periodic geometric changes every few minutes to the file without saving you will see the files in Windows Explorer changing. Then exit Solid Edge without saving since the last backup file was created and you will see your backup files automatically removed from Windows Explorer.
Bottom line, "Automatic Document Preservation" functionality is intended to be a crash recovery option in the event of a Solid Edge crash such that any unsaved work is only lost to the point of the last backup file created. If you save or cleanly exit Solid Edge the backup file is cleared or reset.
Hardware/Software Configuration
Platform: INTL64
OS: window
OS Version: 1064
Product: SOLID_EDGE
Application: APPLICATION
Version: V110.0
Function: OPTIONS
Ref: 001-8360266