Project File Madness

Hello Everyone,

I just ran into a problem with FactorySQL. After opening up another project and sending it to the service, my original project (file) is now completely empty! I know that FSQL can only have one project loaded at a time. I am talking about when I go and open up my old project file again, all it shows is the project root. All my folders and groups are gone. I am quite OCD about saving changes (and I think I read in the manual that it autosaves as well), so what happened? My original project file is still there, it is just completely empty! :cry:

Anyone have any idea what might have happened? Do I need to export separate copies instead of just saving the file?

I’m not trying to point fingers or anything. I just want to know how to avoid this in the future.

Thanks for any assistance.

–HandledException

It sounds like you may have thought that after exporting a project backup, FactorySQL was continuing to save to that file. While connected to the service, however, that’s not the case- when you hit save, or when you make edits, it saves to the service.

Is it possible that you created the file originally by going to “File->New Project”, and then connected to the service, “uploaded” the project, and then worked on it from there? In the sequence I just described, the created project file would remain empty. After connecting to the service, you would now be working on the service project. Only by going to File->Export and doing a project export would you be able to get that project as an independent file.

So to say it a different way: it’s true that FactorySQL only runs one project at a time. Furthermore that project is always the system project, stored in the system_database.fdb file. Anytime the frontend is connected to the service, you’re operating on this file.

Don’t feel bad if this is all a bit confusing, it’s always been a bit difficult to explain. The next major version will be different in how projects are handled.

Hope this helps,

Thanks for reminding me, Colby. I knew there was something I was forgetting to do. Must be a middle-aged moment…

Thanks for clearing this up. I was not exporting regularly, only saving, so it must have happened like you described. It’s a good thing I figured this out now and not while I am on-site doing an install!

I look forward to the upcoming changes! :thumb_right:

–HandledException

Ok, yesterday I created a new project, added some groups and a bunch of action items, and saved the project with a new name. This morning I had to switch to a different project for a while, and now when I came back, the groups (and actions items of course) are gone. Looking at the above, when I did File>Save and gave the project a name, was the project actually saved anywhere? Can I get these groups back somehow?

Well, something about the description of your workflow is a little off, since File > Save never asks for a new name.

If you went to File > New Project, you would give the project a name. That will be a .fsp file somewhere on your system. The only way that project would get swapped out would be to connect to the service, create a new project with file>new, or open a different file.

Are you saying that you now open the .fsp file that you created originally and it’s empty? You might do a file search for *.fsp on your system. If you were editing groups, they were being saved somewhere. The only way I know of that you could actually lose them would be if it was actually the service you were editing, and then you accidentally uploaded a new project to it.

Yes, I made a new project, and gave it the name “Logistics”. I made my changes (added the new groups) and did File>Save while that project was open. I then did a File>Open PProject and opened an old project, and when I did File>Open Project again, my Logistics project was empty. But the groups might still be stored somewhere?