Idea

Clair A avatar image
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Clair A suggested Clair A commented

Keep saving of .fsm! files in FlexSim 2022 Update 2

FlexSim 2022 Update 2 beta is not yet publicly available, but I had the opportunity to review the release notes. Among these notes, it is listed:

• Removed saving of .fsm! files.

I think it's a bad idea to remove saving of .fsm! files. In tech support with our customers, sometimes the .fsm! file was the only recovery solution. For example when both the model file and the autosave file are corrupted, having access to the previous save with the .fsm! file is very helpful.

This recovery option is actually listed by @Ben Wilson in this excellent post about corruption mitigation:

1656924343083.png

https://answers.flexsim.com/questions/27522/my-model-wont-openmy-model-is-emptymy-model-crashe.html

If you want to keep saving of .fsm! files in the next release, please vote on this post.

save errorcorruptedbackup
1656924343083.png (107.7 KiB)
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Felix Möhlmann avatar image Felix Möhlmann commented ·

Could this maybe just be a toggleable option? For example in the global preferences above/below the autosave interval. Possibly have it be active by default so users generally have that fallback option.

When building models we often use a lot of auto increment saves, so having the option to turn it off would still be appreciated.
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Clair A avatar image Clair A commented ·

I visited a customer today and he complained that .fsm! files have been removed. As proposed by @Felix Möhlmann, if there was a checkbox in the Global Preferences to let the user choose whether he wants to get .fsm! files deleted or not, that would be helpful.

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Jason Lightfoot avatar image Jason Lightfoot ♦ commented ·
If anyone does decide to press the save button (why wouldn't you?) please manually reset the model first. If there is some corruption that you only see on reset (eg. process flow, conveyor or agv being the most common) then hitting save will be too late now and you won't have a backup of your uncorrupted model.
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Phil BoBo avatar image
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Phil BoBo commented Phil BoBo edited

This was a non-standard feature that was only understood by distributors and power users that have been using FlexSim longer than it has had an autosave feature. For regular users, this feature has only led to confusion about why there are so many different files saved on their hard drive.

Even Ben's explanation of it that you highlighted explains that you have to be really careful to even have a remote chance of this feature being useful: "If you press save twice in quick succession, you have just lost the previous .fsm! version. Don't be in the habit of pressing save several times in a row."

If you want to save multiple versions of your model at different stages of development, use the auto-increment save feature (Ctrl+Shift+S). If you want to restore to a previous backup of your model, use the autosave models.

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Clair A avatar image Clair A commented ·

In our basic training, at the end of the very first exercise, we explain to beginners what are these 3 files they find on their hard drive:

  • .fsm
  • .fsm!
  • _autosave

And how/when it's helpful to use the .fsm! and _autosave files.

I disagree when you assume that this feature is only understood by distributors and power users.

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Phil BoBo avatar image Phil BoBo ♦♦ Clair A commented ·

So you have to take time during your basic training to explain a feature that is rarely useful and comes with a warning in its description in order to even make it possibly helpful sometimes.

As if beginner users don't have enough to learn during basic training.

This isn't a useful feature, and you are taking valuable training time to explain it because of how unusual it is.

That sounds like an even better reason to remove it than my original comment.

You no longer have to justify to your users why there is a weird ! file on their hard drive. Take that time and effort to teach them about Auto Increment Save instead, and your users will be less likely to actually lose work in the event of crashes or tree corruption.

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