Please specify version and format if asking for help, or apply optional tags above:
Twine Version: 2.3.5
Story Format: Whatever the default was.
So I’ve been working with Twine for years. Switched to version 2 in January. I’ve been working on a project for 4 months with no problems and have really enjoyed the autosave feature. So much so that I haven’t bothered manually saving (you can tell where this is going). I’d leave Twine up and come back to it, no problems. I’d shut Twine down, open it later, no problems, the story would always pop up, ready for editing.
Until today.
Today I opened Twine, worked for an hour, closed it. Then a few minutes later opened it again and got this message: “There are no stories saved in Twine right now. To get started, you can either create a new story or import an existing one from a file.”
I haven’t cleared anything in my browser, haven’t deleted anything. It’s four months of work so I’m a bit sick. Where has Twine 2 been saving my file? Any ideas how to help Twine find it again?
Update: I’ve found most recent html versions. I can copy and paste the text into a new story, I suppose, but is there an easier way to recover the files as the story I can edit?
I too am curious. Where does Twine save the “in browser” data, the data that is cached for display before a formal backup has been completed? As you mention, it is within the browser data since it is available after closing the browser and turning the computer off and then restarting and again opening the Twine app or online version.
If you have a published HTML version, then you can just import that into Twine.
From what you’ve described, it sounds like you’re using the online version of Twine, correct? If so, I’d recommend switching to the downloaded version.
Also, what browser and OS are you on? If you’re using the Safari browser, then that could be the cause. The author of Twine posted this about a month ago: “iOS Users: STOP Using Twine 2.x Online Version”
It’s stored in your browser’s “local storage”, which is normally not deleted, however Safari was recently changed to limit the storage of data there to 7 days.
Other browsers may eventually follow suit, so it’s even more strongly recommended that you do periodic backups of all of your data using the “Archive” button in Twine and/or publishing to HTML any stories which have been edited since the last time you did backups.
Thanks, HiEv, that did the trick. I’m using the downloaded version, I believe. The HTML files I’ve found are all opening with Edge by default. I was able to use Twine to open the HTML file and it did come out as an editable story, so thank God for that. The only problem is that the most recent file is from April 9th, which is strange. I’ll take it - losing a couple of weeks’ worth is better than four months - but I’m really trying to figure out what I would have done differently on the 9th than I did any other time. So, catastrophe has been downgraded to annoyance. Thanks!
Do you open Twine directly? Or do you access it through your browser? This would be the online version of Twine.
Since you said you’re using Edge, then I can assume you’re on Windows. In which case, the downloaded version of Twine stores your data in your “My Documents/Twine” folder. So if someone had deleted your Twine folder, then that might be what caused the problem.
Also, you might try checking your “C:\Users\(your username)\AppData\Local\Temp” folder for more recent versions of the HTML, since that’s where the downloaded version of Twine puts them when it launches them in your browser.
I open it by opening the program. I’m the only one with access to the computer I’m using, so the files weren’t deleted on purpose…and yes, that’s exactly where I ended up finding the html files. I searched the temp folder, and no dice. Strange…
The best thing about this is it made me find this community. I’ve been doing things the hard way for so long and as I’ve been browsing around I’ve found functionality to the program I never even knew was there.
There are two ways to run the web-browser based release of the Twine 2.x application:
You can ‘run’ the copy that is hosted on the twinery.org site. (which you linked to)
You can download a copy from the project’s releases page and ‘run’ that locally on your machine. It’s the archive file that contains web in its file name.
Try launching a game from Twine and see where the path shows in your browser’s URL bar, and then check there on your computer to see if there’s a more recent copy of your game there.
