Back Up Files Error

[stevecasper]

Background:

 

In the past I've had my Backup options set to back up my macro files when terminating the program. Well, recently I had a problem with my computer and had to have the hard drive reimaged and had to reinstall MEP onto the computer. When I went to load my macro files from the external drive I found that the most recent backup was from about 6 weeks earlier.

 

Question 1a: Why didn't my macro files get backed up each time I restarted my computer over the past 6 weeks?

Question 1b: Do I need to physically terminate Macro Express before restarting my computer in order to get the files backed up?

 

Current Problem:

Because I no longer trust the Back Up automatically option, I've taken to manually selecting Backup from the File menu any time I make substantial modifications to any macros, or build new ones. However, the past day or two I've gotten an error pop-up:

 

The disk is not full (besides, shouldn't this save just over-write the previous .000?) and the disk isn't write-protected, either. I've checked to make sure there aren't any open files (besides the one I'm trying to backup) and I cannot make heads nor tails of this. After I get the error, and click "No", I get another pop-up telling me that Backup is complete.

 

When I check the backup location on my external drive, it shows the date-stamp for the backup as today... so the error... wasn't an error?

 

If somebody can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong so that I can make sure if I ever have computer problems again I won't have to rebuild all of my macros from scratch (or refine them again), I would be tremendously grateful.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Cory]

It is my opinion that Vista has shortened it's tolerance for slow closing apps and if MEP takes to long it kills the app before it has a chance to backup. The other day I noticed the ClipMate was backing up it's Db at startup and thought that was clever so I suggested to ISS that they do the same with MEP to work around the problem. But as it is I think the option to backup on close with Vista is broken so you will need to find another alternative. EG you could close MEP before logging off or shutting down. But for me the gratuitous creation of backup files was annoying so I am writing a routine that will backup the current file with a date stamp to a sub-folder \backup\. I actually read in the current file path and break it up so it will work anywhere. I also plan to have an aging routine or max # of versions. I'm leaning toward the later because I often will go for a month or more on some client macros. My point is I just think it's better to manually backup when you make changes significant changes as opposed to every time it closes. Also on some I have deployment macros as I often have the development copy in another folder while I work on it with certain macros disabled and such. Now I can just do the backup as part of the deployment macro. However it did occur to me I could have it run on file load as well. In any case I think the only tenable solution at this point is to create a backup macro that works the way you want.

 

As far as why you are getting the error I am baffled. I use Vista but never use the manual backup command so I tried it just now and it works OK for me. My only thought was if MEP somehow had a lock on the 000 file. This sounds like it might be a support issue for ISS. You said you were using an external drive. Have you tried changing it temporarily to the local drive?

[stevecasper]

As far as why you are getting the error I am baffled. I use Vista but never use the manual backup command so I tried it just now and it works OK for me. My only thought was if MEP somehow had a lock on the 000 file. This sounds like it might be a support issue for ISS. You said you were using an external drive. Have you tried changing it temporarily to the local drive?

Thanks Cory.

 

The machine I'm having trouble on is actually running XP Pro (I use Vista at home, but haven't had any problems with MEP there). If I continue having the problem I'll contact ISS support directly, I was just hoping something about my process would jump out as me obviously doing something wrong (to a fresh perspective).

 

I will change my backup folder to my local C: drive for a quick test - though the reason I have it on an external drive is mostly because my machine is shoddy at the best of times and it's embarrassing how often I have to switch computer or send mine into the IT facilities office for repairs, and yet still need access to my personal macros.

 

But like I said, I'll test it and post my resulst here.

[stevecasper]

I'll test it and post my resulst here.

Ok, I changed my backup folder to my C: drive and did not get the error. I made 5 backups (6 including .000) over the course of 3-4 minutes and discovered another very strange happening:

 

The date stamp on all my backups was exactly the same, and not even close to the right time.

 

I performed these manual backups between 10:40 and 10:43 (mountain time), but the time-stamp shows as 9:51 on all 6 backups.

 

I then changed my backup folder back to the the default and got the "cannot write" error again. I have now changed the backup folder to a separate folder on the external drive and am not getting the error.

 

However, interestingly enough, all files are saved with the same 9:51 time-stamp.

 

I suspect the time-stamp indicates what time the last change was made to any macros, rather than the time the backup was performed. Any confirmation on this? I suppose I could alter a macro (or create one) and test the theory... so I will

 

EDIT

Preliminary tests indicate that I was correct: The backup file's time-stamp indicates the time of most recent change to the macro file, not the time of the backup process.

 

Anyway, there does appear to be something amiss with the default folder "...the same folder as the macro file", at least on my machine. Probably something I'm going to have to figure out on my own (since it's a new bug, and I haven't got any idea what I could have done to mess it up), but if anybody else has had similar issues and has had luck getting them remedied and can point me in the right direction, I would be grateful.

[stevecasper]

Ok, I think I figured out the problem.

 

After discovering that my most recent backup was 6 weeks old, I opened my MEP editor and used the File>Open command to open my .000 backup so that I could at least start with something rather than try to rebuild everything from scratch. So, because the file I was technically using was .000 and the Backup file saves to .000, this was causing the error message.

 

I've corrected it by exporting the .000 macro file under a new .mex and opened that one. Now my backups are working fine, no error messages.

 

Unfortunately, I have now discovered a new problem, the details of which I'll place inside a new thread, as it is not likely related to this one.