How To Set Auto Save Timer?

[DallasSteve]

I almost lost some critical work on a song, but was able to recover it from auto save yesterday.  The problem is, auto save seems to be working too fast for my taste.  I want it to auto save every 30 minutes as set below, but it seems to be saving every minute or so.  I checked the project folder and there were 4 backups in 5 minutes.  That could quickly overwrite all copies of lost work if I didn't discover it quickly.  Fortunately this time I did discover the loss quickly.  Why is my auto save creating copies about every minute?

[Jim Fogle]

This is a wild guess on my part.  Try putting a number in the "changes" box.  I'd try 3, 5 or 10 first.  I'm thinking autosave is wanting both a time and a number.

[DallasSteve]

50 minutes ago, Jim Fogle said:

This is a wild guess on my part.  Try putting a number in the "changes" box.  I'd try 3, 5 or 10 first.  I'm thinking autosave is wanting both a time and a number.

I thought about that, too.  But I also saw a post from msmcleod  (who is Cakewalk staff) about this a couple of years ago and he said it's one or the other.  And in the dialog box it says minutes "or" changes.  And what counts as a change?  Every time I add or copy a note might be a change.  Maybe I will try a ridiculously high number of changes like a million along with the 30 minutes and that might give me what I want.

[OutrageProductions]

I used AutoSave once upon a time and found too many copies, poorly differentiated, of .cwp files in my project directory, so I switched to versioning 2 or 3 copies (as high as 5 if it's a deep project) and just get into the habit of CTRL-S about every 10 minutes. I've had to use recovery a few times a year to salvage a session.

It is curious as to what is causing a disconnect between the CbB counter and the internal clock in the OS. 

[Bill Phillips]

6 hours ago, OutrageProductions said:

I used AutoSave once upon a time and found too many copies, poorly differentiated, of .cwp files in my project directory, so I switched to versioning 2 or 3 copies (as high as 5 if it's a deep project) and just get into the habit of CTRL-S about every 10 minutes. I've had to use recovery a few times a year to salvage a session.

It is curious as to what is causing a disconnect between the CbB counter and the internal clock in the OS. 

I think each autosave over-writes the previous autosave so that there's only one copy that's updated at the frequency you choose. Versioning produces multiple versions and you get to decide how many you get. I use both plus frequent manual saves and save-as for milestones.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Bill Phillips

[msmcleod]

9 minutes ago, Bill Phillips said:

I think each autosave over-writes the previous autosave so that there's only one copy that's updated at the frequency you choose. Versioning produces multiple versions and you get to decide how many you get. I use both plus frequent manual saves and save-as for milestones.

Yes, this is correct - in essence:

• There is only ever one auto-save file, which is overwritten each time at either the interval, or number of changes.  This is totally separate from the versioning.
   
• The versioning works for manual saves.  So each time you press CTRL + S, it will rename the current .cwp file,  giving it the current timestamp, and save your .cwp.  Any older versioned files greater than the "number of versions to keep" will be deleted.
   
• When an auto-save interval is specified, auto-save won't kick in unless the project is dirty, but as soon as you do change something it'll auto-save right away if the previous auto-save file is older than now minus the interval time.

[John Vere]

Worth mentioning on this topic is if you can also use UNDO for as long as the project is open. 
This has been my saviour when I suddenly realize a project is going sideways.
If you think about it it’s exactly the same results as opening an auto saved file that was created in the same session.

It’s actually more precise because you just keep hitting CTRL Z until you get back to the point where things went wrong.  

Autosave is only useful if you have the bad habit of forgetting to save as you work and you experience a crash.  

And as far as retrieving a project that was saved a few days back that is another good habit to include in your workflow. Use “save as” at the end of each day to make a dated back up copy on a different hard drive.  
Shut down routine: 

Save project 

Save as to a back up drive and date and check copy all audio with project box. 

[DallasSteve]

Some people may not be aware that there are multiple hidden copies saved in your project folder, if you are using Auto Save with a setting greater than 0 for "Number of Versions to Keep" and you check the "Enable  Versioning" checkbox.  In the image below you see Cakewalk saved 4 copies at various times as well as the most recent copy titled "Auto-save Copy".  You won't see those extra version from within Cakewalk because they have a different file extension.  But this is actually how I recovered the copy I wanted yesterday.  I went into the folder in Windows Explorer and re-named the version copy I wanted to open and gave it a .cwp extension.  Voila!  I got back my lost work.

[Bill Phillips]

6 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Yes, this is correct - in essence:

• There is only ever one auto-save file, which is overwritten each time at either the interval, or number of changes.  This is totally separate from the versioning.
   
• The versioning works for manual saves.  So each time you press CTRL + S, it will rename the current .cwp file,  giving it the current timestamp, and save your .cwp.  Any older versioned files greater than the "number of versions to keep" will be deleted.
   
• When an auto-save interval is specified, auto-save won't kick in unless the project is dirty, but as soon as you do change something it'll auto-save right away if the previous auto-save file is older than now minus the interval time.

Thanks for the clarification, but I  do have a question: What makes a project "dirty"? I'm guessing it's an auto-correct error but I can't figure it out. 

[msmcleod]

3 hours ago, Bill Phillips said:

Thanks for the clarification, but I  do have a question: What makes a project "dirty"? I'm guessing it's an auto-correct error but I can't figure it out. 

If the main project  is modified, but not saved since the modifications - i.e.  there's an asterisk  (*)  after the project name in Cakewalk's title bar:

 

[Bill Phillips]

3 hours ago, msmcleod said:

If the main project  is modified, but not saved since the modifications - i.e.  there's an asterisk  (*)  after the project name in Cakewalk's title bar:

 

Is it the asterisk (*) makes the project dirty (i.e. unsaved changes). Was "dirty" a typo?

[msmcleod]

4 hours ago, Bill Phillips said:

Is it the asterisk (*) makes the project dirty (i.e. unsaved changes). Was "dirty" a typo?

No, dirty is common computer science term for a file or structure with unsaved or uncommitted changes.

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/410262/whats-the-origin-of-the-term-dirty-in-regards-to-unsaved-progress

[Starship Krupa]

It's been noted by the dev team, IIRC, that some plug-ins have trouble understanding the concept of "idle" and sit there flailing away flipping the "dirty" bit so often that it triggers the auto save counter in less than a minute.

So I can have an auto save set for 5 changes or 5 minutes (which I assume is "whichever comes first?") and certain plug-ins make Cakewalk think those changes happen about once every 5 seconds.

That's how I understand it. I guess the "change" counter could be reconfigured to only count changes made by via user input, but of course, that would require the opening of ye olde code, with the possibility of encountering dragons within its maze of dusty passages.

[John Vere]

7 hours ago, msmcleod said:

No, dirty is common computer science term for a file or structure with unsaved or uncommitted changes.

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/410262/whats-the-origin-of-the-term-dirty-in-regards-to-unsaved-progress

Hey maybe the solution for people who keep forgetting to save as they work is make an option for asterisk to be HUGE as a reminder. Even a flashing angry red one option for some.

But myself,  you only make that mistake a few times before you will learn to make it a habit to save, save & save, as you work.  Go ahead and trust the buggy  auto save, be my guest. This applies to all software I work with , not just Cakewalk. 

[InstrEd]

16 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Hey maybe the solution for people who keep forgetting to save as they work is make an option for asterisk to be HUGE as a reminder. Even a flashing angry red one option for some.

But myself,  you only make that mistake a few times before you will learn to make it a habit to save, save & save, as you work.  Go ahead and trust the buggy  auto save, be my guest. This applies to all software I work with , not just Cakewalk. 

From my days using Corel-Draw I've have learned that lesson well and I've found most Drawing Programs were like that too. You reach a point where you need to save routinely as your drawing got more complicated.  Also when I was using Finale routinely I got in the habit of saving more frequently as my project got larger.

As much as we have progressed with computer software some things have remained the same

[Bill Phillips]

14 hours ago, msmcleod said:

No, dirty is common computer science term for a file or structure with unsaved or uncommitted changes.

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/410262/whats-the-origin-of-the-term-dirty-in-regards-to-unsaved-progress

Thanks. News to me.