All of my images have disappeared!

Sarahbush

I am apsolutely devastated.
Ive been working not a project for MONTHS!!! i just tried to ad a new image and it started freezing up so saved and closed it - when i reopened it ALL my images and Animations have disappeared ..

So I'm left with a lovely white Blank EMPTY game that I've put so my work into...
i could cry..

Gamesalad - WHY?? how would this even happen?
all it says is "Asset Missing" on every image/animation...

Sarahbush

jonmulcahy

first, make a backup of the file, just create a copy. then right click on the copy and choose show package contents. Go to the images folder, do you see anything in there? I would copy (not move) the folder to your desktop. then reopen the copy of the project and drag the images back in

Socks

@Sarahbush said:
I am apsolutely devastated.
Ive been working not a project for MONTHS!!!

Unfortunately it's always a risk working on the same file (with any application) for months and months, writing and re-writing over the same file hundreds of times means you are always at risk from a bad sector or write error or - more rarely - power loss.

@Sarahbush said:
Gamesalad - WHY?? how would this even happen?

The most likely cause would be a bad sector.

Like Jon says, the first thing to check is whether the link to your images is broken or the actual images are gone, check your images folder as he described.

tatiang

Also contact GameSalad Support by clicking on the chat button at the bottom-right of the forums window. They sometimes have been able to restore a corrupted file.

BigDave

if you ever loaded it up to the game salad page /publishing page
you can get the last version you uploaded there

Chunkypixels

This happens sometimes if you move the projectile into a different directory. If you have a previous copy of the project file, or the images in a separate directory, then you should be able to copy the images back into the images folder in the broken project (show package contents) and they should then work again...

Ive had this happen to me a few times when moving project files into a different directory. Its not a new issue...

Sarahbush

thanks everyone for your help..

i managed to get a saved version from my time machine back up.. it was a few hours old so i lost some code but its back..
phewwwwwwww!

it was really odd though!

for everything to just disappear??

thanks again

Socks

@Sarahbush said:

i managed to get a saved version from my time machine back up.. it was a few hours old so i lost some code but its back..

phewwwwwwww!

Glad it got sorted out sounds like you had a lucky escape !!

@Sarahbush said:
it was really odd though!

for everything to just disappear??

It really isn't that odd, of course computers are very reliable but expect the odd corrupted or unreadable file to show up every now and again - and expect your whole computer (or more likely your HD) to die at some stage.

You really shouldn't ever be working on a single file for any longer than the amount of time spent on a project that you are happy to lose - if you were in a professional setting and had been working on a project for months, and had simply been repeatedly writing over the the same file . . . (fingers crossed that in all the weeks and months and billions of bits passed from RAM to HD you don't get a single write error!) . . . you wouldn't have just risked losing your project but also your job ! There is absolutely no reason these days to lose a project if you incrementally save + back up online !

So, to put everyone's mind at rest (no one is comfortable watching someone walk a tightrope over a canyon without a safety net) I take it you are going to abandon working on a single file for longer than a few hours !?!

tatiang

Yep, working in IT as long as I have, I'm no longer shocked or even surprised when teachers come to me and say, "My computer was working fine yesterday and now my hard drive isn't functioning and I've lost all my files!" Hard drives tend to fail without warning. It doesn't help that we remind them to back up... losing your work is never fun.

Glad you recovered what you needed.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Do a save as and make a new version and begin working from that new file. Do this periodically.

Sarahbush

Yes i will ALWAYS do a save as file!! :):)