Nothing is saving

[CraigSmith]

Hi all,

Just suffered a major error. None of my work is saving - just lost 3 hours of code. Massively stressed with deadlines and don't need this. 

"ERROR: Save FAILED."

Does anyone know a quick and urgent fix please 😞

Many thanks,

Crai

g 

[SASJedi]

Sorry, but I don't quite understand the problem. What are you trying to save? Your code? The RTF file being generated? Where did you see the "ERROR: Save FAILED." message? In your SAS Log? In a Windows Dialog?

[FreelanceReinh]

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@SASJedi wrote:
Where did you see the "ERROR: Save FAILED." message?

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See the error message in the status bar in the screenshot.

[Quentin]

I've never seen that error, but I have had cases where hitting save didn't actually save, and I had to hit it a few times.  I think this is a result of all the background scans/backups running on my corp PC sometimes locking files.

I would start by thinking about *where* you are trying to save the .sas file.  Is it local to your PC, or on some network share.  Make sure you have write access to the folder.  Saving to a local location on windows may be faster/safer because no wifi/network in the middle.  Also, save early save often.  

[AllanBowe]

It's probably a permissions issue, but one option could be to use an alternative IDE for running SAS.

VS Code for instance.. This will autosave your work, and keep a cached copy even if it can't be saved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrcsR_4OVBU

[FreelanceReinh]

Hi @CraigSmith,

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@CraigSmith wrote:

... just lost 3 hours of code. Massively stressed with deadlines ...

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Sorry to hear this.

1. As a first emergency measure I would select all code that is currently in the Enhanced Editor (CTRL-A), copy/paste it into another application (e.g., Notepad) and save it from there.
2. Depending on how code was lost, it is possible to recover it by repeatedly pressing F4 (if the code was submitted in the same SAS session) or Ctrl-Z (if it was overwritten in the editor) or from the Autosave location, under Windows typically found in
   

   C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SAS\EnhancedEditor\Autosave of programname.$AS

   (where C may or may not be your local C drive, but possibly on a terminal server such as Citrix). These .$AS files are text files and so can be opened with Notepad.
   Another chance is that the code (or at least a previous version of it) was saved by the general backup process of your organization. See for example the "Previous Versions" tab of the file or folder properties of the file/folder in question or ask your IT.
3. To diagnose the issue (damaged file? hardware failure? access permissions? ...) I would first check if SAS can save the code elsewhere ("Save as..."), i.e., under a different name or in a different folder on the same drive, on a different drive or on a different computer (via the network). Then I would try to save a small test file from a different application in the same folder where SAS failed to save. If those tests indicate that not only SAS is affected, then it's time to call the IT, leaving the current SAS session open.

Good luck!

[Kurt_Bremser]

Hit ctrl-a, followed by ctrl-c. Then open Notepad or similar, and hit ctrl-v. Then save it as text.

This way you get a copy outside of SAS.