Simu Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 A bit of advice, DO NOT USE COMPONENTS. I am not being a drama queen here, just giving some valuable advice. Having spent dozens of hours happily modelling away, tolerating crash after crash when trying to use the quirky implementation of components in FormZ I was rewarded this morning with the complete loss of my work. Admittedly this is a summer project, of no commercial value, but that is not the point. For the first time in over 20 years using software I have encountered an unrecoverable loss of data due to the program failing to save properly. Even the "backup" .fzb file is broken. Preview from saved file: This is what opens up after saving and resuming work later that morning: ALL COMPONENT INSTANCES HAVE BEEN DELETED BY FORMZ. No warning, no reason, just gone. I have been practicing Architecture for over 20 years, and have used many programs, good and bad, in all that time I have never succumbed to TOTAL data loss as a result of the program. You would at the very least expect the backup file to work. I always rely on my file numbering system: "000, Filename, 000" Where the first digit is the major revision, the second number is the minor revision. I had only done 20+ hours work, so was happy with the file name staying at "000 Greenhouse 000.fmz". At this version level I would not expect to loose both main and backup file due to an issue with the program itself. This is unforgivable in a professional environment. Murphy's law: After this wake up call I set up TimeMachine, despite being nagged over the past weeks by OS X. Also, Murphy's Law: Unusually for me these files are not saved onto one of my DropBox accounts, like 99% of my work is. I could cry. Maybe I'm not meant to build this green house, maybe keeping chickens is a bad idea, I don't know. FormZ tech are "investigating" the file, they can't even tell me iff all of the data is gone. I will keep those interested posted. I am going to give 8.5 a try, but if I have even 1 crash or "bug" I will seriously reconsider going back to the relatively stable SketchUp.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanM Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Wow, sorry to read this. My short experiance with components is that this is a feature that went teribly wrong during it's development (also lost a part of my work). it was like using an Alpha version of the program and I nenver tried to use it ever since. I totlly ignore it as if it's not there. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Hi Simu, Sorry you are having trouble. We have been analyzing your file and have been able to recover this much so far: 000 Greenhouse 000.fmz.zip There is some more info in the file you sent, and we are continuing to work to see if any more can be recovered, or what might have gone wrong there. We will email you back directly if / when we have recovered the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsiggia Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Coming from you Dan, those words send a powerful message. Respectfully, Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Hi Simu, We were able to completely recover the file, and have sent it back to you via FTP a few hours ago. Is it working properly for you now? It looks like there may have been a disk write error. If you check your hard drive for Disk or Permission errors, does it find and / or fix anything? Hi Dan, Early on with Components we found an issue with the smaller compression options and components. Those were fixed quite awhile ago, and should be working better now. The biggest issue we are currently aware of is if you have many components selected and you make a change to their attributes (ie, their layer, material, etc) and the Component changed dialog appears, you should select Apply to All and Cancel updating the Components. This will then make the change to your instances only, and you should get the desired result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanM Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Hi Tech I'll give it a careful try (probably make a copy of the file) and hope for the best. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 I have been using a lot of components, and generally they work great for me. The one issue mentioned above: If you select a lot of objects and modify an attribute and get the Component Updated message, do what TECH says and Apply to All and choose Cancel. Following that advice I haven't had any issues... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simu Posted May 10, 2015 Author Share Posted May 10, 2015 Hi Tech, Yes the recovered file is working now. I've progressed quite a bit on the file, using mostly components, only had a couple of crashes, but most important: I did not loose any work this time. As per the "disk write" issue, I've had no issues with my iMac, all permissions are fine and disk verifies as ok. So, I guess it was a case of leprechauns. Will keep you posted if anything else pops up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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