Backup backup backup! And CTRL+S

[Rik_Vargard]

I learned, back in time, the hard way why I can never underestimate the frustrating time to back up my work.
This week, I had a suddent blackout out of nowhere, but since CTRL+S has become a reflex at all moments, it was OK.

Yesterday, I had to install a big Windows 11 update.
Distracted like I apparently like to be, when the PC was ready to shut down, there was that message that I forgot to close AGS.
Thus I clicked Cancel.
There was that AGS window when you close "Do you want to save?"
I clicked "Save" and then I relaunched the update.

IF you forget to close AGS when restarting or shutting down and then go back to save like I did, click "Cancel" and then save properly.
Because when, after the update was done and I restarted AGS, ALL of my 3200+ sprites in AGS had disapeared from the AGS sprites tab.
All the sprites in the Views had also disappeared. In short, it was all gone.

My game folder is like 52 Gb (but I have a lot of 3D Blender and Video files etc)
Anyway, I have a daily backup on my C, D and external E drive. and it takes like 30 minutes each.
And the Google Drive Backup take more than 3 hours every week.

Never be too confident about just saving your game believing it will be OK tomorrow morning.
Shit can happen anytime!

And voilà, just sharing   

[Crimson Wizard]

Because when, after the update was done and I restarted AGS, ALL of my 3200+ sprites in AGS had disapeared from the AGS sprites tab.
All the sprites in the Views had also disappeared. In short, it was all gone.

Have you tried -
File -> Restore all sprites from sources
(also available from Sprite Manager context menu)
?

If you have sprite sources intact, you do not even need to backup the sprite file (which is probably one of the biggest files in game).

EDIT: however, why is this posted in "AGS Games in Production"?

[Rik_Vargard]

Because when, after the update was done and I restarted AGS, ALL of my 3200+ sprites in AGS had disapeared from the AGS sprites tab.
All the sprites in the Views had also disappeared. In short, it was all gone.

Have you tried -
File -> Restore all sprites from sources
(also available from Sprite Manager context menu)
?

If you have sprite sources intact, you do not even need to backup the sprite file (which is probably one of the biggest files in game).

EDIT: however, why is this posted in "AGS Games in Production"?

About the "File -> Restore all sprites from sources": Thank you for the reminder (!!!), I saw it so long ago so I forgot about it. And it's great that it exists. 

As for why this thread is here, well, that's me being distacted. When I realized, I though it could be a reminder.
I wanted to post it in the "Adventure Related Talk & Chat" so feel free to do so. 

[Danvzare]

There are two kinds of people. Those who backup religiously, and those who have never suffered a hard drive failure. 

[Rik_Vargard]

There are two kinds of people. Those who backup religiously, and those who have never suffered a hard drive failure. 

!!

The latter was me, until it happened! Took me more than one time to understand. And the last time it happened just like you said.
One morning, just like every day, I started my PC and then *Bzzzbipbip" and my hard drive was dead.

When you're in a creative mood, it is frustrating to stop working because you have to do that daily 30 minutes backup before going to bed and next morning to work. You already have that specific time to work on your game.

But those daily backups might save 6 months of passionate work from just going into oblivion like you never ever dit it. And like it happened to me back then before I became a CTRL+S freak and a backup samurai.

[Crimson Wizard]

When you're in a creative mood, it is frustrating to stop working because you have to do that daily 30 minutes backup before going to bed and next morning to work.

If you use a a source versioning tool, that might take seconds to commit latest changes, and some seconds more to push these latest commits to a remote repository, as it only needs to copy the modified parts.

[Yanek_Crispbread]

Very wise words! I once lost my Globalscript and luckily had made a copy two weeks earlier to test UI, I am VERY CAREFUL NOW

[Rik_Vargard]

If you use a a source versioning tool, that might take seconds to commit latest changes, and some seconds more to push these latest commits to a remote repository, as it only needs to copy the modified parts.

I searched for such a tool but this is new to me so I'm not sure which one is a good one.
If you know/use one, maybe you can direct me? Thx! 

[Crimson Wizard]

I searched for such a tool but this is new to me so I'm not sure which one is a good one.
If you know/use one, maybe you can direct me? Thx! 

There are not a lot of them, and all are suitable for a simple work when you have only 1 development branch.

I used only 3 in my life: cvs, svn and git. SVN seemed to be most simple to understand.

[Snarky]

The most well-known site for remote repositories is GitHub, which – as the name suggests – uses git. (For all I know they might support other source control systems as well, but git is the normal one.)

Git can be a little counterintuitive at first, but once you figure out the basics, I think basic use where you're pretty much just using it for backup is very similar between git/svn/cvs.

Keep in mind that there are several different clients you can use for each of them (kind of like there are different web browsers or podcast apps). Some prefer to use the basic command-line tools, but if you're not an expert programmer or experienced with source control, I'd definitely recommend a graphical client. Personally I use SourceTree for git, largely because it is free and available for both Mac and Windows.

[eri0o]

My feeling is for using git with GitHub the easiest client is GitHub Desktop.

[Rik_Vargard]

Thanks for the replies, very much appreciated