Hazardous Bug in Autosave

[talmy]

I submitted this to Apple.

1. Put a document on a USB flash drive.
2. Open it (Preview, Pages, it doesn't matter as long as its an app that supports Autosave).
3. Make a small edit.
4. Close the document with Command-W *
5. Note that there is no warning given about the file being changed and saved.
6. Re-open the document.
7. You can't use versions to get back to the original file.

Conclusions -- Lion's protective "autosave" can cause accidental loss of data because it pretends to run on media that doesn't support it!

* Command-Q works as well here, for those that can't get in the habit of using Command-W to close a document.

 

[Tutorer]

I tested this with TextEdit.

On a Mac formatted USB flash drive it seem to work ok so far.

On a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive it is a mixed bag.
If I make quick changes and close the document the changes get saved without notification and it is not possible to revert to an older version. The Finder windows still shows the original saved date then, even though the changes were saved. That is indeed a major flaw.
If I wait a bit longer before closing the document, like a minute or so, I get a notification that the volume does not support permanent version storage. At that point I can cancel and revert the document to an earlier state.

I wonder what happens with NTFS volumes mapped via network.

Ciao

 

[mac.fly]

Hi talmy, would you please try to reproduce the malfunction as described here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3226457

 

[talmy]

Hi talmy, would you please try to reproduce the malfunction as described here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3226457

I don't see that problem at all. Autosave works. The problem I reported in this thread is just the opposite -- the final version is saved but there is no history and you can't go back. So my complaint is sometimes versions doesn't work (and understandably so) yet Lion doesn't warn you that you lose all history when you close a document on a file server or FAT formatted external drive.