Bug: saving files not functioning properly

[byrningman]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I've become accustomed to saving very frequently when working with large text documents in Word 2008, since the program hangs and crashes often. Lately I've noticed an even more nefarious problem however - sometimes the most recent saves are not stored! Not only is the recovered file older than the last saved version, but the stored file can be an hour or more outdated too! In other words, I can be working on a file for an hour or so, and save by hitting command-S four or five times during that period. Word hangs, and that work seems completely lost.

This is a very major bug. It's almost as if the application sensed that I had devised a way to be moderately productive with it, and took its malfunction to the next level.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I've become accustomed to saving very frequently when working with large text
documents in Word 2008, since the program hangs and crashes often. Lately
I've noticed an even more nefarious problem however - sometimes the most
recent saves are not stored! Not only is the recovered file older than the
last saved version, but the stored file can be an hour or more outdated too!
In other words, I can be working on a file for an hour or so, and save by
hitting command-S four or five times during that period. Word hangs, and that
work seems completely lost.

This is a very major bug. It's almost as if the application sensed that I had
devised a way to be moderately productive with it, and took its malfunction
to the next level.

It is in danger of going sentient. Soon it will be climbing the Empire
State Building, Fay Wray in hand.

A good trick would be to do a save-as, preserving a trail of last known
good 'uns.

That's good practice on any toy computer in any application.
Call your incremental saves something meaningful like
"Great Novel Ch4 hero commandeers jump jet to rescue Fay Wray"
If you don't see it on the window name bar, it didn't work.

It is great for working around your own mistakes too.

You could revert to 2004 until they get 2008 to some vague level of
merchantable quality.

It's what I did.

 

[John McGhie]

That's not "actually" a bug (well, it is, but not according to Microsoft...)

That's the way it works. "Working as designed" according to Microsoft. A
stupid and grossly inadequate design leading to a data-loss bug, according
to me!

"Save" and "AutoSave" are different mechanisms, that write to different
files.

When you "Save", you write to the document file.

AutoSave writes to the Temp file (that you cannot see...)

When Word crashes, it will read the AutoSave file. Depending on your
AutoSave period, it is possible to have "Saves" that are much more recent
than the AutoSave file.

I suggest that you go into Preferences and turn on "Always make backup".
Then, each time you save, Word re-names the existing file as "Backup of..."
and writes out a clean new file with the same name as the document.

That way, if you get a crash and Word does not restore to the latest
version, you can open the Backup file, which is just the previous version of
the document. That will be up to date to just before the most recent manual
save.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I've become accustomed to saving very frequently when working with large text
documents in Word 2008, since the program hangs and crashes often. Lately I've
noticed an even more nefarious problem however - sometimes the most recent
saves are not stored! Not only is the recovered file older than the last saved
version, but the stored file can be an hour or more outdated too! In other
words, I can be working on a file for an hour or so, and save by hitting
command-S four or five times during that period. Word hangs, and that work
seems completely lost.

This is a very major bug. It's almost as if the application sensed that I had
devised a way to be moderately productive with it, and took its malfunction to
the next level.

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]