topic Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size in SAS Programming

Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 07:15:13 GMT

Hi, I need help with a technical issue. My computer automatically shut down while I was coding in SAS Studio. I saved part of my code before the shutdown. But when I re-opened the file, all the contents were gone, but if I check the file size, it is about the same size as an old version. Can someone teach me how to recover the file to the last saved version?

Thank you!

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 08:07:00 GMT

How did you store your program? .sas files are pure text and can be opened with any text editor for checking.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

andreas_lds — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 08:08:05 GMT

All depends where SAS Studio is running and where you have saved the program. So please add information about the environment you are working in.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Reeza — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 00:09:01 GMT

And if you have autosaved enabled. If so, there's a version hanging around somewhere. If you're using UE you're likely hooped because you won't have access to the location where the files were saved. If you're working on an Enterprise environment you may have access to it, assuming you had autosave enabled.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 02:44:20 GMT

I stored it as xx.sas. I opened the file with a text editor, nothing changed. Still empty. The strange thing is that the size of the file suggests it should not be an empty file.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 02:46:17 GMT

I am using SAS Studio single-user version, which is part of SAS 9.4 I have recently installed. Would this information help?

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 02:47:41 GMT

I am using the enterprise environment. I will look into it. Thanks.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

ChrisNZ — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 03:12:03 GMT

> you won't have access to the location where the files were saved

Not even with a data step using infile ? Is this location known?

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Reeza — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:44:12 GMT

You can find the files in a folder such as:

C:\Documents and Settings\PURMAH\Application Data\SAS\EnhancedEditor

File should be somewhere in a location like that. You'll likely have multiple folders and will have to find which one matches your previous session. Any session that crashes would have left files behind.

More details here:

http://support.sas.com/kb/12/392.html

@Lifang wrote:
I am using the enterprise environment. I will look into it. Thanks.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Tom — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:59:44 GMT

Do you have a file with ~ tacked onto the name? So if your file was named myfile.sas is there another file named myfile.sas~ in the same directory?

Note if you use Windows Explorer to look at files there are setting that can be set that hide the extension (part of the name after the last period). Personally I always turn off that option as I want to see the full name of the files.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 08:32:25 GMT

I did locate the EnhancedEditor folder but was not able to find the file there. I realized that I have saved the log of running most of the code before my computer shut down, so I was able to recover my code from the log. Thanks for your help. It would be nice to know why the original file turned blank.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 08:33:19 GMT

No, there is no such file in the same directory.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 08:36:12 GMT

EG does have a (bad) habit of destroying files when the connection to the storage is unreliable. I've witnessed several cases where .egp files were trashed that were opened on a workspace server, and where the connection died.

Similar things might happen if EG crashes fatally when it wants to rewrite a file's contents. File is already re-initialized, but further write fails.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

ChrisNZ — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 08:57:48 GMT

EG also loses the connection with the server and becomes unusable at the first opportunity, such as if the wifi's signal strength drops a bit.It should be rewritten or taken behind the barn.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:02:53 GMT

Okay, I see. So it happens sometimes.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:12:15 GMT

Might be a shortcoming in the IOM protocol that is not robust against short connection drops or timeouts.

When working from the home office, EG often loses connection to servers, while the venerable (in fact ANCIENT) X-Windows over an openssh tunnel never does experience more than a slight delay.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

ChrisNZ — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:12:47 GMT

A way to avoid losing programs is to store them in external text files rather than in egp project files.
This is much less required than with earlier versions of EG but still a good precaution.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:18:16 GMT

@ChrisNZ wrote:
A way to avoid losing programs is to store them in external text files rather than in egp project files.
This is much less required than with earlier versions of EG but still a good precaution.

VERY solid advice. Everything important that I have created is stored as a .sas file on the server (AIX on top, so a VERY stable operating system).

Project files are always kept on internal desktop disks while I work on them. Only when I'm finished for the day I do copies to remote locations.

And I do "save early, save often". Every few lines of coding I hit the "store everything" button in EG.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

ChrisNZ — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:24:47 GMT

@Kurt Maybe this is important enough to deserve its own Maxim.

Re: Computer crashed, SAS program file lost all content but remained the same size

Lifang — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:31:31 GMT

I did save it as a .sas file on my local disk. The problem is that the file turned blank after it got interrupted by the shutdown of my computer, which is odd given that it does have a size of 14KB. Anyway, I agree that the points raised by you and @ChrisNZ are important. Thanks.