BUG: Out of Memory scenario causes E-Studio to delete an experiment file without saving new one during Save [19577]

This article applies to:

E-Prime 3.0
E-Prime 2.0
E-Prime 1.x

Symptoms
On some occasions, E-Studio files (.es3, .es2, .es) are deleted during an attempted save operation.

Detail

In some cases, the E-Studio experiment specification file is deleted from the current working directory when a save operation is attempted. This problem is likely to occur while working with a very large experiment. The file deletion occurred regardless of whether the end user or E-Studio initiated the file save operation. For example, whenever the "Generate" experiment option is selected, E-Studio attempts to save the experiment file prior to generating the script. If this problem occurred after attempting to Generate, it may have appeared that the file was deleted as part of the script generation process when in fact it occurred when E-Studio attempted to first save the file.

E-Studio includes an option to automatically create a backup copy of the experiment specification file each time a successful save operation occurs. This option is enabled by default. Therefore, users who encountered the file deletion problem but had the automatic backup feature enabled could retrieve a copy of their most recent successful save. To check the status of the automatic backup feature, select "Options…" from the "Tools" menu, select the General tab and examine the "Experiment Backup" feature.

Each time a successful save occurs, E-Studio creates a copy of the experiment file and names it ExperimentBackupn, where n is a counter. The first file that is saved is named ExperimentBackup0, the second file saved is named ExperimentBackup1, and so on.

NOTE: The automatic backup feature works across all E-Studio sessions that are run on an individual computer and therefore across all experiments that are edited in E-Studio.

Workaround
Upgrade to E-Prime 2.0.10.356 or later. E-Prime 2.0.10.356 contains numerous bug fixes that address some of the Out of Memory bugs. However, it is still possible for Users to encounter this issue under certain circumstances (e.g., large experiments). Follow the steps below for a workaround to the issue:

• Enable automatic backups as described above.
• Retrieve the automatic backup if your experiment specification file is deleted. To retrieve a backup, click on the "Copy backup experiments to the desktop" button and answer "Yes" when prompted to confirm. The backups will be copied to the folder "E-Studio Experiment Backups". You might find it helpful to sort the results by date so that the most recently created backup will appear at the top of the list. This technique may help you to more quickly identify the file of interest.
• Save often while editing your experiment in E-Studio. Although this bug is seen after an attempted save operation, you should still save frequently because:
• This problem occurs rarely
• With frequent saving, the automatic backup copy will contain more of your recent work.
• Follow best practices to keep you experiment as small as possible. Refer to the See Also section below for further information.

See Also:

RELEASE INFO: Known Issues in E-Prime 3.0 Update 2 (3.0.3.80) [27789]

RELEASE INFO: Known issues in E-Prime 2.0 [19406]
RELEASE INFO: Should I Update to E-Prime 2.0 SP2 (2.0.10.356)? [19582]
INFO: Steps to Avoid "Script Too Large to be Compiled" Errors [17199]