Crap, my 7 minute Sequence has gone!

[Jimbo]

HI,

I came back to my computer after having a break and xlights went into not responding and closed.

I reopened xlights and it came up with some error (something like line error with a number).

After rebooting the computer and retrying opening the same thing happened again. This time I clicked cancel and save thinking it might help and now all the screen in the sequence is black and nothing of what I have programmed shows up or plays.

I had 7 minutes completed of the show of a 10 minute show and I am stressing bigtime now.

ANy ideas?

The FSEQ file is still 200mb in size.

There are no timings or anthing in  the sequencer. It is as though it has been wiped clean!

[danj]

would be good for some of the smart guys to weigh-in here...    Just a thought--you should be able to go back to your most recent backup file for that sequence so you don't totally lose your work.   You should find a backup folder under your show directory folder--there should be backups of all your XMLs there.

[sean]

only have a backup if you have been pressing F10 after you do a save.

F10 copies all your xml files. I use it all the time.

One word of caution! F10 does NOT back up your current session. If you have been editing for 6 hours, pressing F10 every 5 minutes but you have not pressed save in the last 6 hours, we are just backing up the last saved xml file. If there is  a crash, you will be going back to teh xml file from 6 hours ago.

My suggestion is press F10 after you press save. This will ensure you have many copies of your working sequence.

[andywylde]

Really good suggestion Sean, wish I had known that before, would have saved a few hours.  What about saving models?  I have clicked on the "link" at the bottom of the file menu ... doesn't say exactly what it does but sometimes it seems to save, sometimes it makes the program crash.  I have lost more models and had to redo them than anything else.

[sean]

F10 backs up
xlights_rgbeffects.xml. This file has all of your models and your layout
xlights_networks.xml. This file has everything that is on the SETUP page

EVERY sequence xml you have. I have 100. I am working on 1 of them. I press F10, it backs up all 100.

One other note, you should also backup the backup directory someplace else. Maybe put it on a usb flash or copy it to dropbox. Protect yourself in case you get a disk crash.

[bpducman]

I had to learn the hard way myself. Now I backup the first think I do when I open up XL and then I back up the last think I do before I get out of XL. Over kill maybe.
Peace of Mind Yes.

Brad