Is my Actinic Biz croken?

[Donald Gray]

I make snapshots quite regularly and they work out to be around 18Mb.

However, I have noticed that they drop dwn to below 3Mb - this is happening more often ... I am wondering if my Actinic is broken...

The last 2 .ACDs snapshots of the same catalogue -

#159 was after doing some updating/editing/adding new product - as it came out at 2.3Mb, I closed Actinic and immediately reopened it and did another snapshot.
#160 is that snapshot.

Advice will be welcome, please.

[Jan]

Do the smaller snapshots import?

Regards,

[Donald Gray]

Hi Jan
I have no idea - I am scared of messing up the whole shop!

[dave_finlayson]

I find that sometimes Actinic "forgets" to include the image files in the snapshot, although this hasn't happened to us in a while, I would guess this is what is happening to you. As you say, running it again almost always clears whatever the problem is.

[leehack]

I have seen this too, i think it is linked to the same problem that stops an upload with no mentioning why at all, yet if you restart, it flies through normally. Best thing on snapshots until this bug is fixed is take a few and have a library of them, making sure after youve done 2 or 3, that the largest ones are all the same size.

This snapshot problem may also be linked to the V9 snapshot issues. It's a bit of a bugger really because if all else failed a snapshot was always the saving grace. Now we need to check their size to make sure they have done it properly. It is so random, that's the problem, chancing of reproducing at demand is nil i expect.

[Donald Gray]

Hi Dave & Lee

'Tiz a bugger as you say... But as you are also experiencing the same from time to time, I guess I will have to live with it....

Im using 8.5.2.... Is it worthwhile doing a new install of the latest?

BTW: as you can see, I do keep a library of snapsoths abd usuall delete the previus months wort. I also back 'em up to internal D and external drive as well (I learned from a total failure of C & D at the same time - spike or something!)

[leehack]

Im using 8.5.2.... Is it worthwhile doing a new install of the latest?

Not IMO no, it's one of those things we learn to live with i'm afraid.

[Duncan Rounding]

No I'd hang on till 903 surfaces.
I often copy the entire Site folder as belt and braces as well as making a snapshot

[Donald Gray]

Noted Lee...

I now always check the filesize before moving on... Ah well ...

Thanks for the input

[Donald Gray]

No I'd hang on till 903 surfaces.
I often copy the entire Site folder as belt and braces as well as making a snapshot

After my disaster some while ago when I lost many hundreds/tousands of photos, I am paranoid on backups

I have 2 x 500GB internals, 2 x500GB & 1 x 350GB externals...I backup the backups... I use MS SincToy to do the backups - its magic and so easy and convenient - fast too...

[pinbrook]

yep take snapshots and employ normal data backup procedures across your hard drive, that way you get site1 copied too

[Donald Gray]

speelig mistook

Hi Jo

Too darn true!You can see that I have Actinic and Actinic Snaphots in my 'Documents' directory. I keep all my important directories there and they get rippled through to the various backup drives in turn. I usually have two back up copies of everything as well as the working copies.

I have gone overboard & maybe an overkill bit what the hell, the cost of storage being what it is these days, it is a small cost to have as insurance - Just imagine a total loss of Actinic & all snapshots/database.... (as well as all the other stuff ie: accounts, letters, photographs, music and the latest 'shoot em up' score!) the thought scares the living .... out of me!

[gabrielcrowe]

i use carbonite.com

makes me feel cosy inside, knowing that my doodads are online and safe.

[TraceyG]

Hi,

I've never seen this problem before. Can I just ask a couple of questions:

1) are you using Vista (guessing from the names of the files)?
2) if 'yes' to 1) did this happen before you went to Vista?
3) what exact verson of Actinic are you using (ie Catalog, Business, Designer etc)?
4) do you have more than one site?
5) can you give the steps you use to create the snapshot please

[Duncan Rounding]

I have had something similar happen last night with v902 on XP. I created a snapshot to send to a client but noticed that it was too small. On inspection I found that it did not contain any site referenced images. I had to close Actinic and restart it a couple oif time before I could get a good snapshot that contained the images correctly.

Very worrying that snapshot are not reliable. I hope this will be resolved in v903.