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Files being deleted!

M

mjps2

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 10, 2010
7
0
San Francisco
Hello, helpful people,

First things:
MacBook Pro
Mac OS X 10.6.2

Two weeks ago, an .xls file I had worked on had been deleted the next morning when I looked for it. Last night, I noticed the same thing happened with a folder and files within it - to which I had recently saved files. I did not manually move these folders or files to trash, they were just there. They were both the last things I had worked on before I shut down for the night.

After the incident two weeks ago, where I had lost an entire day's work, I got in the habit of looking into my trash before emptying it. That's how I discovered the newly deleted folder, plus about 100 music and photo files, all of which I did not move to trash myself.

I did three additional things yesterday in addition to working on these files - I backed up my hard drive using Time Machine, I synced my iPhone, and I plugged in an external drive (which is where some of the photo and music files that were deleted were stored).

Any ideas? I know it's virtually impossible to have a virus, but the file and folder deletes of the most recent docs worked on are just plain weird.

Thanks!!!
 
Off the op of my head I am not sure what could be causing the problem of the files/folder being deleted. I am however extremely interested to find out what maybe be behind it as if it starts to happen have a way to do something about it.

Does it happen when not running time machine backups?

Check the HD for errors as a safe guard as errors can cause weird issues

Do you have any apps like Macpilot, cocktail or alike?
 
Thanks for responding. I believe the last time it happened I did not just back up to Time Machine.

I'm not running any of those apps you mentioned. Not sure how to check the HD for errors - any tips?
 
Ok

For checking the HD do the following

Goto Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility

Once disk utility is open select your HD and click verify disk to the bottom right of the disk utility window

It will run a check on the HD and report any errors.

Also do a repair permissions which is the button on the opposite side of the window to the bottom.

Lets know if any errors appear with either Verify disk or the permissions repair.

What app did you use with the document that was deleted as I will do some testing to see if I can make something happen.
 
That is good that there is no errors.

Have you updated excel with the latest update?

I will do some testing to see what I can make happen and if files get deleted for me I will try and work out why.

I have both Office 2004 on an older mac and Office 2008 on the mac I am using to respond here.

I will post back as soon as I find something.

Could you please try something for a test make a dummy excel file with anything in it and see what happens with it.
 
Sure, will make a dummy file. But I've been working with excel docs all week and it has only happened these 2 times. It doesn't happen all the time with these docs... Mystery, I know!
 
That is the very strange part suddenly just 2 documents it happens to.

Do you use macros within the excel documents it happened to?
 
That is good as macros have been a known source of problems before.

When the file/s are saved where do they get saved?
eg: Home/Documents or in another folder

Or did they suddenly for no apparent reason may have saved to the trash

I know that may sound weird but I have seen it happen previously but on windows with office there.

I have some more ideas to check which hopefully will lead to a permanent fix to stop anymore suddenly ending up in the trash.
 
Typically in another folder saved on my desktop or within a folder, but not in the documents folder.

It's possible they were auto saved to the trash folder, but not by me!

Thanks for all your help looking into this.
 
There auto save is more than likely looking for the documents folder or a folder within it.

From memory office saves to the document folder by default that is from each time I have used the saved files end up there.

It is possible the auto save has something to do with the files suddenly being in the trash.

As a test to see what happens try setting the default save location to the folder within the one on your desktop as it should hopefully stop the files ending up in the trash.
 
I have encountered the same issue. Word and excel files are disappearing from my hard drive with no explanation. also some random folders have vanished and they are not in the trash either. When I click on the file name in recents I get the following message: cannot open file This document has been deleted or is not currently accessible.
[automerge]1589369918[/automerge]
I also get the following message for different files:
Sorry, we couldn’t find filename.docx. Is it possible that it was moved, renamed or deleted?
 
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