How to recover a drawing and FireCAD project file after a crash

Introduction

After a fatal exception or crash, there are certain steps that can be followed to ensure you recover both the FireCAD project (.atp) file with all connections and circuits, and also the latest drawing (.dwg) file version. Most information can be recovered within the last autosave interval, which is usually set to 10 minutes.

 

Steps to Recover the Project and Drawing File

When a crash or fatal exception has occurred, AutoCAD or FireCAD will abruptly shut down. If you are prompted to save a drawing recovery file when this occurs always click 'Yes'.

After restarting the program, you will see a message similar to the one below that indicates that the FireCAD project has shut down unexpectedly, and ask if you would like to save a recovered file to the original project folder. It is recommended that you click 'Yes'. This will create an additional file in the project folder with the format '[PROJECTNAME]_yy-mm-ddThh-mm-ss_recovered.atp'. This file contains the latest project connections and devices up to the moment of the crash.

 

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Next, the program will open and may open the Drawing Recovery window. It is important that you recover the drawing with Drawing Recovery before opening the recovered project file. Determine which file is the latest version of the drawing that you want to recover, open it, and then if the file name is different than the original file name such as a '.bak' or 'ac$' autosave extension, save it as the original file name in the original project folder. This is important as the FireCAD project is linked to the drawing by name. The newest possible recovery drawing should be saved as the original name. If it is not, it will be seen as FireCAD as a new drawing, with no connected devices.

 

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Once the latest drawing is saved, open the recovered project file. You can rename the project file before opening it to remove added date/time stamp if you prefer, but this file will be the most up to date version of the project.

 

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Open the drawing file and verify that everything remains connected by clicking 'Validate Devices'.

 

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