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Re: Mathematica crashed -- where did my notebook go?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg99131] Re: Mathematica crashed -- where did my notebook go?
  • From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
  • Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:43:54 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <gt3evs$i7v$1@smc.vnet.net>

Bob F wrote:
> Mathematica just crashed on me in the middle of writing a program, and
> of course everything I had done is gone. Is there any temporary file
> or anything still left on the disk that contains anything of what I
> was working on at the time of the crash? I tried to do a bit of
> investigating, but could not see any open files that exist while
> working on a new notebook, so where does Mathematica put everything I
> type into a notebook until I save it?
> 
> If it doesn't write anything to a file - why not? My gosh, this
> happens often enough to people all over the world, that I would think
> that Wolfram would have some sort of recovery mechanism built in, but
> I haven't found anything so far. How many times have customers asked
> for something like this? How many people think the same thing when
> this happens? My guess is a quite a few.
> 
> So Wolfram -- add this to your list of things to put in the next
> version -- your customers would truly appreciate not having to
> recreate that program they had been working on for a couple of hours
> when the crash occurred and they very quickly tell themselves -- Oh
> CRVPPPPP!!! WHY DIDN'T I SAVE THAT FILE!!!!!
> 
> Anything would be better than nothing -- why not use the disk to write
> the new notebook contents to while it's being developed. Yes I should
> have known that a crash was imminent, but my crystal ball is in the
> shop getting a new LED display installed ;-)
> 
> If this has happened to you and you wished that Wolfram had some sort
> of recovery mechanism, please add your 2 cents to this post and let
> Wolfram know how important, we the customers, think this is (or
> isn't).
> 
> -Bob
> 
> ps -- this was on a Mac OS X 10.5.6 system with Mathematica version
> 7.0.1 if it matters
> 

I totally agree - this and an infinite undo would make Mathematica a lot 
more friendly. My impression is that since 6.0, frontend crashes (which 
destroy unsaved notebooks) have become more frequent - presumably 
because of all the extra complexities associated with the dynamic mechanism.

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk


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