Issue 104879 - make automatic backups turned on by default
Summary: make automatic backups turned on by default
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: General
Classification: Code
Component: ui (show other issues)
Version: OOO310m9
Hardware: All All
: P3 Major with 8 votes (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords:
: 80772 123408 124533 (view as issue list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2009-09-08 09:48 UTC by mickelliot
Modified: 2018-04-08 14:55 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT
Latest Confirmation in: 4.1.0-dev
Developer Difficulty: ---


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Description mickelliot 2009-09-08 09:48:39 UTC
I would like to politely request that developers make automatic backups turned
on by default.

I have spent many hours writing an important document on a laptop. My laptop
battery ran down to zero and the laptop switched itself off. I believe this
occurred, by chance, at the same time that OpenOffice Writer was doing an
auto-save. When I restarted my computer I found that the active document had
been corrupted (I opened it in a hex editor and found that it consisted of a
large number of zeros). I appreciate that this issue might be uncommon, but I
was horrified to discover that no backups of my document exist anywhere on my
computer. I found that the saving of automatic backups is by default turned off,
and will only occur if the user explicitly sets a flag in the preferences
dialog. I suspect that most users will only discover this option once a file has
already been lost!

I therefore request that developers consider making auto-backups, by default,
turned on.

Best wishes,

Mick
Comment 1 jbf.faure 2009-09-12 16:30:14 UTC
Changed from defect to enhancement.

Whatever software you are using, this is not a good idea not to save your work
until it is finished. You should not be so confident in your machine.

Regards
JBF
Comment 2 Edwin Sharp 2014-01-19 19:54:12 UTC
There is no reason not to enable by default Tools - Options... - Load/Save - General - Save - Always create backup copy
Comment 3 Edwin Sharp 2014-02-13 13:05:58 UTC
*** Issue 123408 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 4 Edwin Sharp 2014-02-13 13:06:39 UTC
*** Issue 80772 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 5 Edwin Sharp 2014-03-27 12:32:24 UTC
*** Issue 124533 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 6 richard_g 2014-03-27 13:40:46 UTC
Sorry for having created duplicated issue 124533.

I see that this problem is open since 2009 and it becomes urgent to do something. See the number of lost documents in the "Document recovery" section of the forum. Most of these documents losses would not have occur if the "Always create a backup copy" option had been enabled by default. Remember that most of the user installing Apache Open Office for the first time do not look at the options panel and come on the forum when it is too late.

Now, disks have a capacity of several hundreds Giga-bytes, even on a laptop. So, there is no reason not to enable by default the "Always create a backup copy" option. I hope this option will be definitely turned on for next release.

Richard.
Comment 7 Edwin Sharp 2014-03-27 13:46:28 UTC
Giga -> Tera :)

Best way is to join us and fix by yourself.
We have more tasks than programmers...
I am not a programmer myself.
Comment 8 oooforum (fr) 2014-03-27 13:48:52 UTC
This option is unchecked because the automatic backup is full instead of incremental (or differential?).
For big document, this process is too long to execute. See https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=54204
Comment 9 richard_g 2014-03-27 14:18:20 UTC
Edwin:

Giga for laptops, Tera for supercomputers. ;)

But an answer like "If you want something, do it yourself" is not the good way to improve the software. OK, it's an open project, and users must help. But I can't help in fixing code. At work, I am using only Fortran language. I know a little about C, and nothing at all about C++, so I don't feel able to understand the Apache Open Office code and to fix anything in it. So I try to help by submitting issues or asking for some enhancements that seem important regarding documents safety, I also help users on the forum, but don't ask me anything else.

If you have more tasks than programmers, programmers should consider which tasks are important. From my point of view, enhancing the safety of documents is more important than adding new functionalities that only few users would use. Apache Open Office has now number of functionalities that make it a very good office software. But there are some bugs or safety problems: DOCUMENTS LOSSES ARE UNACCEPTABLE!

Programmers, please take a break in adding other features, and improve the existing code. I hope that choosing which existing options should be turned on by default does not require a big coding effort.


Richard.
Comment 10 vulcain 2014-03-27 20:53:18 UTC
With this feature, i will come back to AOo.

@oooforum : an asynchrome backup could not help without freeze?? With the death of Windows XP, a lot computeur have  64 bits multi-processor and program could make 2 task in the same time, no ?

Similar issue on LibreOffice:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47988
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31076
Comment 11 oooforum (fr) 2014-03-27 21:54:14 UTC
(In reply to vulcain from comment #10)
> @oooforum : an asynchrome backup could not help without freeze?? With the
> death of Windows XP, a lot computeur have  64 bits multi-processor and
> program could make 2 task in the same time, no ?
At this time, AOO is only available as a 32-bit program with Windows systems.
Comment 12 vulcain 2014-03-28 11:09:32 UTC
(In reply to oooforum from comment #11)
> At this time, AOO is only available as a 32-bit program with Windows systems.
Yes, but all windows 7 sold are in 64 bits, same with Windows 8 (and arm but it's another but small problems).
With death of Windows XP, keep a programm in 32-bit is not an obligation and give some advantage.

May be for Apache OpenOffice 5 with python 3 ???
Comment 13 Edwin Sharp 2014-03-28 11:11:59 UTC
+1

32-bit OS belong to 20th century.
Comment 14 orcmid 2015-12-29 16:32:26 UTC
(In reply to vulcain from comment #10)
> With this feature, i will come back to AOo.
> 
> @oooforum : an asynchrome backup could not help without freeze?? With the
> death of Windows XP, a lot computeur have  64 bits multi-processor and
> program could make 2 task in the same time, no ?
> 
> Similar issue on LibreOffice:
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47988
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31076

I think automatically making/keeping a backup and enabling auto-recover/-save provisions are different and we should view them differently.  That should be considered in any actions taken on this issue, especially since auto-recover/-save can (and does) fail.  

Also, the x64 discussion should be viewed as a separate issue and not tail-gated onto this one.
Comment 15 oooforum (fr) 2016-05-03 07:51:07 UTC
Idea: this parameter could be present as step in the installation wizard.
As my comment 8, add a warning to prevent end-user for extended saving process.
Comment 16 tintin60 2018-04-08 07:33:55 UTC
Hi,

jbf.faure said 
"Whatever software you are using, this is not a good idea not to save your work
until it is finished".

I agree but 221 files have been transmitted for corruption on french forum in 2017 and 85 since january to march 2018.
Lot of students have lost important documents.

It's urgent to solve this problem.