Problems Saving Changes

There may be times when you make changes to the data, and these changes don’t seem to be retained. Most of these problems are not actually caused by Compass, but are the result of the way Windows works. Here is a description of problems:

(Note, before you been working on this problem, it is very useful to set Windows so you can view file extensions.)

A. Not Setting Changes. The Editor will not save a survey unless it knows that a shot or the heading has changed. If you enter a value into one of the Heading Edit Cells or Shot Edit Cells, the changes don't take effect until you exit from the cell. You exit from a cell by hitting the Enter key, hitting one of the arrow keys or clicking the mouse on a different cell. The editor also forces a cell to change when you change editor pages. If you make changes to a cell and then try to save a file without exiting from the cell, the editor will not save the changes. You can tell if an entry has been recorded by looking at the "Modified:" field in the Shot Edit Page.

B. Read Only Files. All Windows files have a set of Attributes associated with them. These attributes are Archive, Read Only, Hidden and System. If a file is set to be Read Only no program is allowed to modify it. If one of your survey files is set to be Read Only, Compass will not be able to modify the file to add your changes and they will be lost. . Also, if any of the backup files (*.BAK) or the temporary files "C$$$$$$$.$$$" are set to be "Read Only," Compass may have a problem updating these files, which can cause the saving process to abort before it is finished.

If see a copy of the temporary file "C$$$$$$$.$$$" sitting in the folder with your other cave files, it is a sure sign that Compass is having trouble saving data because it cannot delete, rename or add new data to some a file. Compass only creates one of these "C$$$$$$$.$$$" files for a short period of time when it is saving data. The only time Compass will leave this file is when it could not create, delete, save or add data to an existing file.

To deal with this problem, I have made changes to Compass so that it always removes the Read Only attribute when it works with files. However, there may be instances where it cannot remove the attribute or it has other attribute problems. For this reason, you should remove the attribute from all Compass files. You can do this by finding the files in the Windows Explorer and then right clicking on them.  Choose the “Properties” option and make sure the Read Only option is not checked.

Be sure to do this process on all Survey files (DAT), Backup files (BAK), and Temporary files (C$$$$$$$.$$$.) You can also just delete all the Temporary and Backup files, but be careful not to delete any of your data files.

C. File Date. Files can sometimes have the wrong date. This can happen if the computer’s clock is wrong. Compass uses the date of each file to make decisions about when to process files. If the file date on a file is wrong, Compass may make the wrong decision. This can cause newly added surveys to not appearing in the plot. For example, if you have a "Closed Data" (CLP) file whose date is set a year in the future, Compass will be confused. Compass normally closes the survey data when the Survey Data file is newer than the Closed Data file. However, if the file date is set to one year in the future, the Data File will always be older than Closed Data file, and so Compass will never re-close it. As a result, the same old data will keep appearing in the plots even though you have added new surveys to the file.

The solution to this problem is to force the Project Manager to close the data. You can do this by setting the "Close All" option in Project Manager and then pressing the "Process and View" button. You can also fix the problem by deleting all your CLP files. Be careful not to delete any of your Survey Data files (DAT) or Project Files (MAK).

D. File Is Open By More Than One Program. If one of your survey files has been opened by two programs, you may not be able to modify the data in the file. For example, it is relatively easy to open a survey file two different version of the Editor by clicking twice on the “Edit Cave Survey or File” button the Project Manager. This problem is relatively easy to solve. You just make sure you only run one copy of the Editor at a time.

E. Multiple Versions Of The Data. It is not unusual to have several copies of the same survey data accessible on the computer. Some times, it is in different folders or hard drives. Sometimes it is on another computer or server on a network. This can cause a problem where you are editing one set of data but processing and displaying a different set of data. This will cause any changes you make to not appear in the final plot.

You can solve this problem by making sure the program is always working on the same data. It also helps to get rid of extra copies of the same data. You should also avoid having more than one copy of Compass on your computer. This is because different versions of Compass can default to different folders, thereby causing confusion about which data is being processed.