Ok I believe I do not know how Trimble Connect is supposed to work. Worked on Sketchup file on iPad and published to TC. Opened on Mac and worked for whole day saving periodically. Sketchup had a BugSplat and all of the work done since being published from iPad is lost. Is there not any backup file saved locally during manual or autosave. I have tried to find a backup file but no luck so far. It seems inconceivable that saving many times does not update a file on the local machine at least. After reading many TC topics it is apparent that I must publish to TC, not save. But isn’t there something tracking changes on the local machine? Would appreciate any help in recovering something.
When you open a file from TC the file is first downloaded into a temporary folder. Saves and auto saves are made to that temporary folder. Test this for yourself by downloading a file and then use File>Save as… to see where it goes.
It may be that the temporary folder with the file you were working on is still present on your computer. You could search for it with Finder. It may be there’s a recovered version of the file, too. Open SketchUp and scroll down through the recent files in the Welcome screen to see if it is there.
Thank you DaveR, I did search for file name on entire mac system but there was nothing with that name. So then I searched for any .SKP or ~.SKP and just ~ and there were no matches.
As I wrote, the file gets downloaded into a temporary folder. It’s just that: temporary. Your operating system will, at some point, delete the file or possibly the folder.
When I work on a file I’m opening from TC the first thing I do is use Save as… to save a copy of the file to a non-temporary directory. Usually a folder I have for the client or specific project. After that saves and autosaves go there and when I finish working on the project for the moment, I publish it to TC. Then I have two copies of the file. One on my computer and one in my TC storage and the OS can delete the temporary files if it wants.
It seems I was uneducated about the proper file workflow of Trimble Connect. I did not “save as” but instead did just “Save” my changes because I was under the expectation that Sketchup created a local file when working from TC. Apparently, Sketchup will open a TC file and allow one to edit it and execute saves that magically go nowhere, neither saves to local file nor to TC. An unfortunate learning experience. Software should protect against this, either inhibit “Save” (greyed out on menu) for a file opened from TC or create a local file that can “Published” back to TC when editing is complete.
It does create a local file.
You aren’t reading what I wrote. So again, when you open a SketchUp file from Trimble Connect it downloads the .skp file into a TEMPORARY folder. Saves and autosaves go there. It doesn’t send your changes back to TC until you publish or publish as.
If your computer doesn’t crash and you publish back to TC when you are finished, the temporary file shouldn’t be needed. I prefer a belt and suspenders approach which is why I would save to a non-temporary directory as I wrote.
Here’s screenshots to hopefully clarify.
The file is downloaded from TC.
Using File>Save as… shows you where the file is saved during the download.
This system is much better than working from other cloud storage sources which don’t actually download the file to your computer.
Thanks DaveR, that is how I thought the process worked. But immediately after the crash I attempted to find the local file to re-open, there was no folder or file on my drive. So, I re-opened from Trimble Connect and realized there were no changes made since it was first published. Which obviously is the way it is supposed to work. No changes are saved until the file is re-published back to TC. But where did the edited file go, And, where is this TEMPORARY folder located?
Since it’s in a temporary folder it could be lost when the OS recovers from the crash.
As I wrote in my first reply, you can see where that temporary folder is located if you do a Save as…
By the way, a backup copy of the file is created in the folder, automatically, too. As long as nothing happens on your computer to clear the folder both or those would be there.
DaveR, would you mind giving me the full path to that folder? I can not see in the photo where AppData is.
On Mac the path is slightly different. It would be ~/library/application support/… normally that’s a hidden directory. You can make hidden folders visible in Finder.
You should be able to see the path if you do the Save as… thing I’ve described.
With all hidden files turned on, I have no AppData folder in Application Support.
As I said, the path is different on the Mac.
AppData on Windows is the equivalent of Application Support on Mac.
Hurray, found the backup file. For anyone who has this same issue, it is on Mac: ~>Users>(user name)>Library>Application Support>Sketchup 2022(or your current version)>working>SKETCHUP>RecoveredFiles>(file name)
Thank you DaveR for sticking with me, greatly appreciated
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You got lucky when SketchUp crashed actually, with Autosave checked in the preferences it saves the last version in that location (~/Library/Application Support…)
Normally, the download location when opening files from Trimble Connect via the extension (or file menu) in SketchUp is in a hidden private temp file that is cleaned up after a reboot.
The first time you hit save, it should pop up a message that the file is actually in use by another application. As long as you don’t reboot, it should also appear in the recent files of the welcome screen in SketchUp ([menu] Help > Welcome to SketchUp)
It confuses everyone and should be handled by the developers, I guess, like they did in the iPad version.
Fwiw, the standard file locations of the Trimble Connect Sync app are more user friendly in a sense that they are located in a normal folder.
Depending on the sync schedule and changed files, it would create a versionhistory in the Trimble cloud.
Thank you Mike. You have provided some needed clarity. When I gain the courage again, I will attempt to get into the TC Sync app.