I had a most upsetting experience with DT Pro last week. I was editing a new Rich Text note from within DT. I was doing so full-screen. I misspelled a word and control clicked it to fix the error. Just after the contextual menu came up, DT quits unexpectedly. When it re-opens my entire file is gone.
Has anyone had this glitch? I’m highly hesitant to use DT as an editor now that this has happened. Is there anything I could do to insure that this doesn’t happen again?
-Casey
Casey, that should not happen, and doesn’t happen to me (knock on wood).
Stability problems usually trace back to problems with the operating system and/or disk directory. And those problems can result from power supply variations, a forced shutdown of the computer, incompatible software (we don’t trust haxies designed to modify the operating system), too little free space on the hard drive, or hardware problems such as a failing hard drive or bad RAM.
I always recommend routine preventive maintenance of the operating system and disk directory. That includes the Disk Utility permissions repair and disk verify/repair procedures. I recommend a utility such as OnyX (free) or C*cktail (shareware) to run a number of maintenance operations that could otherwise be run from the Terminal, such as cleaning caches, etc. For PPC computers I like DiskWarrior, as it helps fix directory problems before they get serious, and keeps the directory optimized.
Power supply problems are common. An electrical outage that shuts down the computer while it’s writing to disk can result in corrupted or lost files. Less obvious but often damaging are voltage fluctuations. I use a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) on each of my desktop machines. Notebooks with an installed battery are less subject to power problems.
Lack of enough free space on the hard drive to support the needs of the operating system and applications, which must often write temporary or cache files, can slow down a computer and in the worst case cause file corruption. Apple engineers recommend keeping something like 15 to 20% of the hard drive’s capacity free.
Some users install “add-ons” such as haxies to modify the appearance or other aspect of the operating system. It’s possible for such modifications to cause memory conflicts, resulting in crashes or freezes, especially if they are not compatible with the latest version of the operating system.
You may submit the crash log resulting from a DT Pro crash in an email to Support. We can examine it for the likely cause of the crash.
And of course I recommend periodic external backups of your database, especially when significant changes have been made. The Backup Archive script creates the smallest possible dated archive of your database to a location of your choice. See DT Pro Scripts > Export > Backup Archive.
Hi Casey. Can’t help you here, since I’ve never had this happen. I use right-click to correct spelling mistakes often (not a good commentary on my typing ability!) and never once had any kind of issue at all. (I too am knocking on wood!)