Does anyone know what causes a Sketchup file to become corrupted? I have one I’ve been working for a couple of hours and it crashed Sketchup at some point (Bugsplat). I tried opening it on my other computer, splats that too.
What would cause this and how to prevent in the future?
Dropbox link to file, in case anyone wants to try.
Thanks!
Bob
Do you keep your files on a network drive/thumbdrive/cloud/synced folder or Locally?
I use Dropbox so they’re on my local drive but also in the cloud.
Bob McCarter
949.677.4213
This might have absolutely nothing to do with your issue, but I have found loading some folders containing multiple files to and from cloud drives sometimes results in data loss. Transferring the same files individually solves that.
A majority of corrupted files come from errors caused by the files being non local.
A dropbox folder that automatically syncs to the cloud is one of those situations. The generally excepted best practice is to keep your working files local and only allow syncing manually.
Interesting info, Box. I would not have thought that. Every other file type I work with - word processing, spreadsheets, etc - is also sync’d via DB without incident.
Thanks for the head’s up.
Bob
FWIW, Bob, I’ve heard of other people having the same sort of problem with other file types. Generally it’s larger files. I suspect it has something to do with access time. As Box indicates, the general wisdom is to save the files locally and sync to Drop Box manually. It’s a little insurance, too, because you have a backup you can access without the Internet.
Hi, Dave - do you know of any way to “de-corrupt” a file?
Once in a great while someone from the SketchUp team has been able to de-corrupt files but most often it seems there’s nothing that can be done to fix them.
Actually, it dawned on me that I have Time Machine set up on my Mac. I just went back and retrieved the last file before the time when it became corrupted! SO, I didn’t lose too much work.
I will have to work out another DropBox back up method, though, I see.
Have a great day, Dave.
Bob
I would also note that because the SketchUp file format is proprietary binary there is really nothing anyone outside the Trimble team can legitimately do to repair a corrupted file. Until/unless the Trimble team figures out a more robust technique for saving a file, the best practice is to always save to a local, non-synced location and copy to the remote later.
It’s a good thing for the Time Machine, huh?
I don’t think you will have to change your workflow all that much. I have a local (internal) drive where I save my files. I create a folder for each client and sub-folders inside for each project. the SketchUp, LayOut and other support files for that project go into that folder. I work out of that folder as I go. For backup, I upload the files to my cloud drive at the end of the day. On my PC I run Cobian Backup which also creates a local backup on another drive. Your Time Machine should be doing that, though.
Yea, toughest part, for me anyway, would be to remember to do the daily backup!
I think part of the issue may be how often I save. Before I ever do any operation with a plug in, which is pretty much all day long, I “save”. Dropbox may not have finished syncing the previous file version before I’m forcing it to sync again.
See you in Vancouver next year?
Ah ha! I bet you’re on to something (if not on something 
)
Definitely in Vancouver.
Caffeine at this hour, Dave!
I’m looking forward to Vancouver. The Sketchup team, in their infinite insanity, has selected me to be a presenter! This is gonna be fun!
You can set up a repeating event to run an automator script that does the backup sync unattended. Then the only limitation is that you need to leave the computer on at whatever time you set the schedule.
That could work. Thanks!