xstage file in the project directory but still share the drawing assets with previous versions (so new edits to existing drawings will also appear in older versions, as they share assets). This is an interesting distinction that I hadn’t appreciated before: Menu items “Save As” vs “Save as New Version”: I will offer this advice to all the students about not saving an open working file to a portable drive, beyond what I already tell them about making regular back-ups and incremental saved versions. I always start with how and where are projects being saved and try to identify any breakdown with the elements folder not being written completely. In short: work local, save zipped, copy the zip file to the synced folder or final destination.ĭespite this, I still have a few issues in each class, and with each student having a unique remote setup, there are too many variables for a single diagnosis. Using Harmony’s File>Backup Scene… function is a nice one-step solution for this. I’ve had frequent issues with incomplete or corrupted transfers or syncing of uncompressed folder structures. zip or other archived file before transferring remotely. The other recommendation is to always compress project folders to a. I recommend students do not work from or save directly to any folder using a sync’d service, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. The reasons being some thumb drives have very slow read/write speeds, and interruptions in network traffic may affect writing project files. One of the things we did with in-person teaching was to use a policy of never working on a network drive or a USB thumb drive. My guess is something may be interfering with the write process. With informal troubleshooting, it appears that Harmony keeps all the project info in RAM until a Save command is executed, when everything is written (or updated) to disk. Students typically report that the project is intact when they save, but notice the corruption upon reopening. The most common issue is the elements folder will not have any of the drawing subfolders in it or not exist at all, but I have seen other subfolders or files missing from the main project folder. The most common issue I have seen is project folders lacking various subfolders.

I have also had issues with students working remotely.

Toon boom harmony student