Mixcraft 9 pro does NOT give the option to save automatically

[Crylium]

After Spending 6 hours working on a project, and almost completing it, My project crashed, I immediately panicked because I hadn't remembered ever saving my project, Mixcraft usually never crashes on me, actually the last time it crashed was on my mixcraft 7 several years ago,I use mixcraft quiet frequently and went through mixcraft 8 and 8 pro now Im using mx9 pro studios, since then it hasn't crashed so that's probably why saving the project before finishing it never even came to mind, and also, on adobe, it saves automatically, for you. After the crash I tried everything possible to get my project back, nothing was saved anywhere, and the backup only backs up what has been saved which is actually retarded considering the feature should be there for when we forget to save. Needless to say 6 hours of working hard was all for nothing because mixcraft 9 pro studio DOES NOT have a feature that saves automatically for you. Im not impressed and im pissed as fuck. So I will not be purchasing future mixcraft products, ever again. At least not until they become smart enough to add the simplest feature to their latest product that saves for you periodically, there is nothing pro about a product that doesn't even save automatically, if adobe products did not save automatically imagine the backlash they would get.... just imagine... My projects on adobe have crashed several times, adobe forces you to save your project before you even start working on it, and whenever it crashes and I reopen my project, it is there and ready to go. There is nothing pro about a product that doesn't even give an option to save automatically, mixcraft 9 pro studio says "well IF you save your project we will make backups for you incase of a crash" but seems to me that if you forget to save, you are screwed, unless Im just unaware of something. I searched for my project and all I found were wav.mpk files that replaced my track audio that can't even be opened, sad sad day...

[comedians]

Sorry to hear you've lost your project, but...
A similar scenario has just happened to one of my clients telling me his hard drive was corrupt and could I re-install my software onto a new drive. Not a problem & part of the service. When I asked for a back for his data it turns out he hadn't backed it up since Dec 2019. Was itt the fault of my software that he didn't have an up to date backup, of course not it was his own fault.

So I don't see how can lay the blame on Mixcraft. If you have never saved the project at all then you must take the blame. With no project folder how would it know what/where to save if it did have an auto backup?

You cannot compare to Adobe or Office, they are only saving a single file not a project made up of many files & pointers.

[Mark Bliss]

You cannot compare to Adobe or Office, they are only saving a single file not a project made up of many files & pointers.

Nor are they going to pause while you are in the middle of recording a take to automatically "save" your work.
I am not aware of a single daw that operates as the OP expects. It is simply not practical. The user needs to save when appropriate, or expect to face the possibility of lost work.
Six hours is a lot to lose. Pretty harsh lesson. I think I have lost maybe 1.5hrs once or twice. Something under an hour a number of times.

My advice? Save often. Save versions. When you play back some edits or setting tweaks and like the results, save!

[Crylium]

Sorry to hear you've lost your project, but...
A similar scenario has just happened to one of my clients telling me his hard drive was corrupt and could I re-install my software onto a new drive. Not a problem & part of the service. When I asked for a back for his data it turns out he hadn't backed it up since Dec 2019. Was itt the fault of my software that he didn't have an up to date backup, of course not it was his own fault.

So I don't see how can lay the blame on Mixcraft. If you have never saved the project at all then you must take the blame. With no project folder how would it know what/where to save if it did have an auto backup?

You cannot compare to Adobe or Office, they are only saving a single file not a project made up of many files & pointers.

Imagine being in 2020 and mixcraft not having an auto save option. Its practical and would push mixcraft into the right direction, adobe took the issue seriously because their company is at the top of the food chain, whereas mixcraft is shark food for several other Daws at the bottom of the food chain. Maybe if you stop defending your mediocre bs, and stop blaming the customers who are buying your product, you'd be in actual competition against the top names. No shit I should have saved, the entire point is that I forgot to save, and for when times like this happen, mixcraft should have a measure in place to protect people from themselves. Instead here you are defending your brand as if you have no room to improve when you do, your mindset should be "ok customers are upset about this, lets work toward making that issue a non issue by developing a feature that auto saves work in progress, or at a minimum remind the artist that they have not saved their work with a prompt," would that be too much to ask for, I made it very clear that I forgot to save, and you are here saying "you should have saved don't blame mixcraft". Mixcraft does neither, and your response to this is proof that you guys don't even plan on making progress in this area. Never in my life would I imagine someone working for mixcraft would come on to reply like this, it's very unprofessional, its a bad look for your company as well, If I was the boss of mixcraft seeing you reply to me the customer like this, you would get fired on the spot. If you instead came on here to reassure me, progress would be made in this area, Id be thinking to myself, ok great maybe I stick around and wait it out, spend more money in the future on mixcraft after they've fixed these small issues. But if this is your attitude towards the issues I face because you guys aren't offering a simple feature reminding us we didn't save, or saving for us automatically, if your attitude towards the customer is "its your fault and we have nothing at all we can do to improve this area" then bye, id rather spend my money elsewhere. Also you are very wrong about adobe, layers upon layers of work goes into every project in photoshop and premier pro and audacity, very much comparable to mixcraft, so you suggesting otherwise tells me you do not much work with their program, only difference is they take saving work seriously and not only have cloud based means to save work automatically but also force you to save before you ever start working, maybe you should take an in depth look at how they save their work, it is very professional, all of which mixcraft can do, stop making excuses.

[jwarv]

This is another case similar to the delete unused waves issue. A simple autosave option in settings would solve the problem. If it interrupts the work (which mine does, quite violently when I click save during playback.) a brief warning statement next to the box could be posted.

I will send a video of what happens when I hit save during playback of most of my projects.

[freightgod]

An autosave function would be a fantastic feature. Surely it could be programmed to operate under different parameters, such as when the transport is at a standstill (as in, when playing or recording is not occuring).

[Mark Bliss]

First thing, @Crylium
@comedians is just a user like you. Trying to help. He does not represent Acoustica.
And I can assure, Acoustica does monitor these comments and suggestions.

Personally, I would never want the program to save automatically while I work.
That would only lead to random saving of things I am evaluating. I want it to save when I ultimately decide to save work or progress I want to keep. Only I can control that.

The only thing I could see working is a timed prompt/reminder. And for me that would quickly become an annoying distraction that I would promptly look to turn off or disable!
But maybe that would be a desirable tool for some people.
In the meantime, there are simple workarounds. One could use an app for that I reckon.
I personally find saving my work at appropriate times quickly becomes a habit. Especially after forgetting once or twice, which I have been guilty of!

[heks]

The autosave should be an "optional feature", it would be up to the user to decide to use it or not, I can see there may be some problems on some systems when recording. But, I'd like to have it and do use it in other DAWs if available , they also had user selectable times between saves.

[Rolling Estonian]

An auto save could be good, maybe not for some. How many DAW have that function or ability? I'm sorry though man, if I work on anything for 2 min I'm saving, not saving for 6 hrs is not good. Like you said, you've been recording for awhile, save early and often was pretty well covered in Recording 101.

M

[freightgod]

I too have lost hours of work and kicked myself hard and often for not saving frequently. I try to remember, but the older I get, the more I tend to forget to remember

[Crylium]

An auto save could be good, maybe not for some. How many DAW have that function or ability? I'm sorry though man, if I work on anything for 2 min I'm saving, not saving for 6 hrs is not good. Like you said, you've been recording for awhile, save early and often was pretty well covered in Recording 101.

M

I contacted support about it, and they said they would speak to developers about adding the feature in the future, they said they have thought about bettering their save options in the past but they worry it will increase cpu usage, I told them that having the option gives better reliable as far as the big picture is concerned and that I would trade some cpu usage for better reliability any day, I also specified that I simply wanted it to be an option in the project features section of preferences for those who actually have use for it like me, that way, increased cpu usage is opted into by selecting the auto save feature or the prompt asking you if you want to save. I wasn't asking them to force this change onto people who didnt want it, but simply to make it an option.

[jwarv]

Sounds reasonable to me. I like the stopped transport idea too. I tend to save compulsively on the fly, as I'm mixing and tweaking. Of course there is a prompt to save when you x out, but nobody sees a crash coming.

Also, perhaps being allowed to set the intervals might be nice. But whatever.

[aj113]

Solution:

A small nag screen in the corner of the GUI "You haven't saved your work for x minutes. Do you want to save now? Yes/No.

Nag screen closes after x seconds without saving.

User defines whether the feature is enabled or not; user defines X

[freightgod]

Solution:

A small nag screen in the corner of the GUI "You haven't saved your work for x minutes. Do you want to save now? Yes/No.

Nag screen closes after x seconds without saving.

User defines whether the feature is enabled or not; user defines X

I like this, it seems familiar to what many softwares do...I would take it one step further and add a "Don't ask again" checkbox.

[jwarv]

All salient solutions.