I can’t find any way to make regular saves of my database, apart from making a backup. Every other program I use has a Save or Save As feature, and many give the option of automatic saves at user-specified intervals. I recently upgraded to RM8, but it is crashing very regularly, and I keep losing a lot of work, which would not happen if I could save every few minutes.
It does save as it goes, for every piece of data you enter. The crashes are unfortunate and frustrating, but they should not cause any data to be lost. So the data loss is a great puzzle. Are you possibly getting different copies of your database and resuming with the wrong one? Or are you possibly restoring from a backup and restoring from the wrong one?
You can actually save your database to a different name or a different folder any time you wish, more or less the same as a Save As, by doing File=>Copy, but I’m not sure that’s any better than doing a backup any time you wish.
Are your databases stored locally or in the cloud? Ex. Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.
I store my RM databases locally, but in the OneDrive folder. My OneDrive is set to keep everything locally and the folder is backed up to the cloud via OneDrive. I would never keep my files only in the cloud. Unfortunately, OneDrive defaults to storing only in the cloud, so if you use OneDrive you should override the default. In the OneDrive settings screen, there is a tab called settings. The last option is Files On Demand. Turn OFF the option that says Save Space And Download Files As You Use Them. You have to click Settings about three times to get to the actual settings option.
OneDrive is not my only backup. It is one of several. But it has the virtue of being very easy to use these days on Windows. In fact, it’s very hard not to have a OneDrive account these days if you are a Windows user.
The official RM recommendation is not to store your RM database in a cloud folder. In general, you can do so safely if and only if you pause the cloud service before starting RM and resume the cloud service after existing RM. I know from personal experience that the Pause/Resume is critical if you are using Dropbox. It is not recommended by RM, but OneDrive seems to be an exception to the general rule and it seems to be safe to leave OneDrive running while you are using OneDrive. It would be fine to have an abundance of caution and do the Pause/Resume procedure even with OneDrive.
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This might sound stupid but have you gone to setting and checked on your folder settings. Every time I make a backup it goes to a folder located in my one drive folder. I also copy and paste my data to the same folder in one drive.
I’m not sure if the question was directed to me or not. But in any case, yes, all five of my folder settings are for OneDrive, very much intentionally. As I have mentioned before, my OneDrive folder is set to keep all files local at all times. So I am not “keeping my data in the cloud”. I’m backing up my data to the cloud. I’m also backing up to two other cloud services and also to two different external hard drives.
The only possible problem would be that the database folder is in the OneDrive folder and presently I am not pausing OneDrive when I use RM. This is going against the official RM recommendation. But unlike Dropbox, OneDrive seems to understand when my RM database is in use and does not try to sync it when it is in use.
I name the backups carefully, but while I generally back up every 5-10 minutes (that’s how frequently the program can crash!), I still lose data. The automatic save does not appear to work entirely effectively.
Through bad experiences, I will not use the cloud – or OneDrive – for backup. I do a lot of multi-media work from home for a local organisation, and have never had any need for OneDrive. I back up to 1tb external hard drives, which works well.
Hi Bocito – yes, I have set the folders in Settings.
Jerry; looked up onedrive on google and found a nastygram from microsoft for mac users. Files will be cloud stored and this option cannot be turned off.
It sounds to me as if all Mac users should choose some cloud experience other than OneDrive. If Microsoft did that on Windows, I certainly would immediately choose some other cloud experience. I would probably just go back to Dropbox with the understanding that I would have to be pausing Dropbox any time I was running RootsMagic or Visual Studio. Visual Studio is even more sensitive to Dropbox not being paused than is RootsMagic. I wonder if the file by file or folder by folder option will still work on OneDrive on Mac. It doesn’t sound like it.
I wonder if the situation is quite as grim as it sounds. In the present version of OneDrive on Windows, you can turn off Files-on-Demand globally, and you can also turn it off on a folder by folder basis or a file by file basis. I started out turning it off for all my folders, but sometimes it didn’t seem to work. So I went to the global option and the results have been fine.
If Microsoft sticks with this decision, I think it will be a horrible decision - like when they got rid of menu bars in Microsoft Office in favor of the ribbon, or like everything about Windows 8.
It appears as if the “Always Keep on This Device” option will still be supported on a Mac. That means marking files or folders to “Always Keep on This Device”. When I was doing it that way, it didn’t always seem to work. We shall just have to see what happens moving forward with OneDrive, both on a Mac and on Windows.
I’m relying on the following quote from the same Microsoft page.
Pinning a file on the new Files On-Demand platform means that its contents will be downloaded into the OneDrive cache. Because is the file is in the OneDrive cache, it can always be provided to the sync root whenever it is needed, even if the machine is offline or the OneDrive app isn’t running. The presence of the gray check mark indicates a file that is in this state.
“Pinning” is their terminology for Always Keep on This Device. It’s interesting that they seem to view the real storage as being in the cloud and what’s on a hard disk is just a cache. I view it just the opposite. What’s on my hard disk is the real storage, and what’s in the cloud is just a cache. I think their point of view is very disheartening.
This is nothing that is specific to Microsoft - it will also affect Dropbox and probably other cloud file providers.
What is happening is that Apple is implementing a long planned and announced change to how extensions to the ‘Linux’ kernel can be implemented. This change has been made for security reasons and the ‘new’ way is supposed to make it easier to maintain such functions and less ‘risky’ as MacOS evolves. The old way will no longer work from MacOS Monterey 12.3, the beta for which has just been released, and is expected to be released in a month or so.
The new way of implementing such augmentation of low level extensions has been available for quite some time - it is just that these major software companies have been very slow in implementing what has been long planned and publicised.
Microsoft, Dropbox and no doubt others have stated that they are working on reworking their code so that the newly announced restriction is expected to be a short term issue. They had to publicise the restriction because beta users were about to stumble on the issue - and would no doubt start shouting.
Microsoft strikes again. Don’t blame Apple for eliminating problems with the kernel approach. MS just implemented a very bad choice which rips local files off macs and leaves you no option.
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/02/01/onedrive-mac-users-unhappy-files-on-demand/
My suggestion would be for Mac users to try iCloud. Apple provides a small amount for free. the next increment is I think 50 GB. Files on the desktop or in the documents folder are synced via iCloud. I use both an iMac and a Macbook Pro. I switch back and forth using RM8 and RM7 before.I have n to had any problems but I never have a file open on both computers at the same time.
I’m not a Mac user, so I’m just curious. Does iCloud allow you to keep a local copy of all your iCloud files?
I understand that files that are not stored on the desktop (or folder on the desktop) or in Mac’s documents folder will be kept locally and not on iCloud. I’ve not had problems yet and no delays waiting or reading RM files located on iCloud.
Jerry: if the user does NOT turn on store desktop and documents in the cloud they remain on the mac which is the best choice. Otherwise they are ripped off and it is tricky to get local copies back. The sidebar has an icloud drive folder which can store anything you copy to it and remains under your control. icloud has 5G free and adds 50G for $1/month which is a great deal since this now gives you the hide my email feature and private relay. The latter causes no slowdown and triggers no panic attacks by banks and mail services. traffic goes to apple who does not see it and is passed to a 2nd party who gets it to the appropriate website but does not see where it came from. VPN like function without the flaws.