Do NOT Use Google Drive on your local hard drive as a working drive

[hseiken]

This isn't really a critique of Xara, though it does involve a Xara bug...but if you are using google drive folder as a working folder with big files and save before Google's done uploading, it will cause Xara's file saving to malfunction and save 1kb files or 0kb files.

I only tell everyone this because I had a major presentation I had worked on for weeks which disappeared in an instance when Google Sync and Xara got into a fist fight and Google punched out Xara and killed my presentation. I lost 4 weeks of work.

Just a friendly warning and hopefully someone at Xara can look into their saving routine if the file is being saved is also being accessed by another program at the same time. It gave me that 'access violation' error that one should get...but it didn't shut down so I thought everything was cool, saved over the backups...and then restarted to find everything gone.

I'm sad, angry and all that...it sucks finding a bug in this way, but stuff happens and I know how to avoid this problem in the future and I hope everyone else does the same.

[Acorn]

Sorry for your loss.
I don't use Google Drive but have Dropbox in a similar set-up.

Now, very occasionally, a time back, I have such a conflict but I was able to restore a recent Xara backup or a recent Dropbox backup.
Are you saying you lost everything?

While I am be paranoid, I also save design files to the web and other local media, as my safety net.

Saying all this I have not had any recent conflicts.
Your profile suggests quite early Xara products that, I think, predate Google Drive and Dropbox, so perhaps they don't have the appropriate functionality later versions appear to have.

Acorn

[handrawn]

sorry to hear that too; bad news

I don't use google much at all except their search engine, but I find It gave me that 'access violation' error that one should get a bit strange - an access violation is a sign of something wrong, or something not in sync - I would not have saved over backups at that point; instead I would have saved to a new iteration so I could check by reopening first - access violation used to be common in xara, for me anyway, but not so much with the latest version[s]

[Ben.Moses]

Hi hseiken,

I have passed this onto the developers to look into, DDES-12145.

Also you should be able to recover some, if not most of your work through your backups.

Thanks,
Ben

[rubiksolver]

I use sugarsync and have this exact same problem. It happens if I try to save a larger document several times over a short period of time. I typically resolve the issue by saving the document under a different name.

[pauland]

I lost 4 weeks of work.

That's terrible, but really having your only working file in a single place is always asking for trouble. Didn't Xara make backups?

[Acorn]

I use sugarsync and have this exact same problem. It happens if I try to save a larger document several times over a short period of time. I typically resolve the issue by saving the document under a different name.

Are your Xara backups enabled and are they also being saved to the same folder?
Acorn

[rubiksolver]

Are your Xara backups enabled and are they also being saved to the same folder?
Acorn

They are enabled and they are not being backed up to the same folder. Here's my guess on what may be happening: When saving a xara file it temporarily deletes the file before rewriting it with the changes (this is a guess). When it temporary deletes the file, sugarsync (or dropbox) begins to process it as a deleted file. Then xara tries to rewrite it with changes but the file is locked by sugarsync until it syncs the deleted item with the server. This appears to be when the error occurs.

[Acorn]

They are enabled and they are not being backed up to the same folder. Here's my guess on what may be happening: When saving a xara file it temporarily deletes the file before rewriting it with the changes (this is a guess). When it temporary deletes the file, sugarsync (or dropbox) begins to process it as a deleted file. Then xara tries to rewrite it with changes but the file is locked by sugarsync until it syncs the deleted item with the server. This appears to be when the error occurs.

That would be a dangerous strategy for any cloud service. What usually happens is a temporary filename or location is assigned and following a successful upload the old is saved off and the new one renamed to the old. SugarSync offers version control so you always have a fallback.

Your SugarSync account includes up to 5 versions of each file so you can easily fix those “uh-oh” moments when you accidentally save over the top of an important document. However, you can also ensure a file never gets changed by placing it in the Web Archive folder of your online storage space. Any files placed there will not update or sync automatically. Did you delete a file on accident? It gets placed in your SugarSync Deleted Filesfolder, where you can easily recover it at any time (unless you permanently delete it from this folder).

Acorn

[rubiksolver]

I didn't lose the files. I have backups and revisions. But the error persists and the only way around it is if I rename the file when saving.