Hi Olly Pekelharing,

You can move the default location of the "autosave" to a different location if you take the whole path: C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Studio 2021\Autosave.

Please see some smart workaround in this article: https://gateway.rws.com/csm?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0039974 

Hope this helps?

Oana Nagy said:

You can move the default location of the "autosave" to a different location if you take the whole path

What does that mean? Take the whole path and do what?

Nicholas Quaintmere 

I guess the solutions are these:

1. upgrade to 2024
2. wait for the work that is planned for 2022
3. put a patch on your flat tyre and drive home

No amount of complaining will speed this up I'm afraid.  I wish we did have a magic wand but we don't.

Our conclusion here was that we are ourselves the Autosave function, since we hit Ctrl + S pretty much after each change we make in a document. So, for us, no need so far to have the Autosave function enabled, we'll wait for the fix in Trados 2024.

We also have a colleague who absolutely never hits Ctrl + S, so having the Autosave function enabled is fine for her.

What interests me is why this problem has suddenly raised its ugly head on my system. Although I'm aware that others have struggled with the issue in the past, I never did until yesterday. In all that time (the roughly 3 years that I've had Studio 2022) I have never changed any settings in this respect. Autosave is on and the directory was a subdirectory that was backed up on OneDrive. It never seemed to care before and then suddenly - major issue! No updates, no changes. Weird.

Not a plausible solution, I'm afraid Jerzy. My "Documents" folder is in OneDrive and Studio will not let you change the location. 

Nicholas Quaintmere 

Nicholas Quaintmere said:

What interests me is why this problem has suddenly raised its ugly head on my system.

That is a good question and we wondered the same.  But if you look at Microsofts forums you'll note that there are a lot of problems linked to synching on OneDrive.

Nicholas Quaintmere said:

No updates, no changes. Weird.

But that is almost certainly not true.  I don't think you can prevent the updates from Microsoft so you surely have been regularly changing the environment Studio sits on.

I have other software on my own laptop that is similarly affected by OneDrive and for most of them (especially those with large resources) I have moved the location of my files into folders that are not on OneDrive at all.  I found it quite hard to manage the whole synching process.  On my work laptop I can't do anything as it's controlled by our IT and it drives me nuts, but on my personal laptop I can at least have some control.

With Studio, on my personal laptop, I excluded the folders from synching as this is a feature that I don't think was always available, but at some point it became possible, and that has improved things a bit.  But I still prefer to manage my backups as I choose and not as Microsoft imposes on me.  I did try to write something about this a while back, Aug 2023, when we first started seeing problems, and it could probably do with a refresh, but it might be helpful (maybe you already know... but just in case):

https://multifarious.filkin.com/2023/08/20/working-under-a-cloud/

I think in a future release we will offer more control over where things that we typically followed Microsofts lead for, and instead let users decide where things should go.  But like everything, these changes are never as simple as just changing a file location and that's it, and the work has to be planned in careful with other things.

We appreciate the patience of all our users while we work through these things, but we get there.

The other thing we didn't mention is that you could also create your projects in our cloud solutions and still work in Trados Studio when you like.  That way the management of them is always safely backed up, and you have the additional flexibility to work on any computer anywhere just by logging into a browser.  The capabilities of the cloud solutions gets better all the time, and if you have not tried it recently you might find it can helpful.  You're not restricted to cloud OR desktop... you can use both, and we provide this without additional cost.

I'm pretty certain about the updates because I do the Windows updates manually every time I get a notification (I get them about once a month and just got one literally as your answer popped up). But we'll see if today's MS updates solve (or worsen!) the situation!
Unfortunately, using your cloud solutions is not an option. I work in a German public institution and data protection regulations make things prohibitively difficult when it comes to things like that. Excluding the folder from synching might help, if I could figure out how to do it. I just don't seem to have the option. I've set the Autosave folder to "Always keep on this device" and that didn't really make any difference.
Anyway, fingers crossed!

Nicholas Quaintmere 

Nicholas Quaintmere said:

Unfortunately, using your cloud solutions is not an option. I work in a German public institution and data protection regulations make things prohibitively difficult when it comes to things like that.

And yet OneDrive is ok?  We do have similarly stringent controls around data in our cloud solutions, we also have plenty of gov organisations using them.  But I can well imagine your situation.

I hope you manage to find an appropriate solution that works for you.

Nicholas Quaintmere said:

Not a plausible solution, I'm afraid Jerzy. My "Documents" folder is in OneDrive and Studio will not let you change the location.

So move it out there. I know MS tends to put a hand on all your data, but I would simply move the Documents and other folders out of OneDrvie.

And the problem is caused by MS updates, so this is why it came "from heaven".

Clearly, that would work, but equally clearly there is a reason why my Documents folder is in OneDrive, i.e. it contains all the files (e.g. my documents) that I need to back up. The simplest solution would be if one were able to choose an alternative location for the Autosave folder, but alas that is not envisioned by those that decide such things.
Windows updated again today, maybe the probably has magically disappeared. I'll have to check that later...

Nicholas Quaintmere 

There are much better options for backup than OneDrive. It belongs to Microsoft and one has no control on the data stored there. I have all my data local on a NAS. Backup is done sequential on 3 further NAS. This is IMO much more secure than any cloud solution.

Nicholas Quaintmere 

There are much better options for backup than OneDrive. It belongs to Microsoft and one has no control on the data stored there. I have all my data local on a NAS. Backup is done sequential on 3 further NAS. This is IMO much more secure than any cloud solution.

That may well be the case, but I work in a university and they have decided to use it.

Nicholas Quaintmere 

I'd be very interested to know which one?  We have a fairly extensive University program and we provide all of them with free technology for teaching.  This being the case they should be on 2024 already, and have access to Trados Team, and have access to a Language Weaver setup that is beyond the reach of freelance translators (normally... as this is most likely financially prohibitive).

Unless you only use Trados for commercial purposes and don't actually teach the technology?

Hi Paul,

I work as the university's translator (German university, with a fairly large requirement for texts in English, e.g. website and so on). So not really commercial, but also not teaching.

Nicholas Quaintmere 

Can the live sync of OneDrive be switched off? And have you tried to delete the AutoSave folder alltogether? Studio will recreate it and then might work with no problem.

Hi Jerzy, I can't test it right now, because the problem seems to have magically disappeared. ‍♂️

Maybe something to do with the Windows update I just carried out, who knows? If the problem crops up again, I will definitely try that option (i.e. deleting the Autosave folder). Thanks for all your help.

Haha, I counted my chickens too early. Problem is still there. Deleting the folder seems to work for the first save (CTRL+S). But any subsequent save causes a crash. Looks like I'll be switching Autosave off again. Despite that, thanks for your suggestions. 

Hi, Nicholas, I've got the same problem with Trados 2024, never had it with Trados 2022. I don't use OneDrive, however, my projects and TM/TB are saved in my personal folder on my university's intranet. So when working from home, via VPN, this issue occurs more often than when working at my office at university, where I'm connected via LAN. I watched my autosave folder (had it set to autosave every minute), and noticed that the crash occurs whenever my VPN connection flickers for a millisecond while I hit Ctrl + S to manually save my translation. Apparently, deleting the autosave files on my laptop works perfectly well, while saving the file on my intranet folder does not because of this minute intranet connection issue. So, I guess, at least in my case, it's just a matter of unfortunate mistiming.

Hi Susanne! That's a point I never thought of. I actually am in my home office working through a VPN. Maybe that has something to do with it. I think I'm just going to stick with manual saves for now. The TM saves everything anyway, so the risk isn't that great.

BTW, my autosave path is "C:\Users\sr37begy\AppData\Roaming\Trados\Trados Studio\Studio18\AutoSave" and NOT "C:\Users\sr37begy\Documents\Studio 2021\AutoSave". Don't ask me why, I sure didn't set it up like that. I faithfully upgraded from Traods Studio 2019 all the way to 2024, however, I migrated my licence December 2024 to my new laptop, in case this makes a difference.

Now THAT is interesting! Does anyone know why that is? Is it because one of the developers thought it would be a better place to put it?