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.iba, 3D, Apple, computer, file folders, gaming, iBooks Author, interactive elements, interactive textbooks, ipad, iTunes Producer, Mac, operating system, OS X Lion, scratch disk, technology, textbook revision, textbooks
For those of you who have not read Part #1 and #2, here they are:
Part #1: Apple’s iBook Author saga
Part #2: Apple’s iBook Author saga
At the end of Part #2, I had put out a request for feedback from anyone who had used the ‘Save a Version’ function in iBooks. I am sharing Herman Mittelholzer’s reply as I think it has some crucial information. I follow it up with my reply.
That was an interesting story, but I have come across another issue with iBooks Author that Apple has not as yet responded to. Has anyone else experienced it. Rather than repeating the whole story here, I will instead copy bellow the text of an email I sent to Apple, to which I am awaiting a reply.
It concerns disappearing disk space, that remains permanently lost and requires reinitialising of the hard drive see to get it back!
— I’m following up on two emails I recently sent, with regard to Save a Version facility on iBooks Author.
My issue was that I was permanently losing storage space on my scratch disk every time iBooks Author carried out an auto-save function. This became critical on two occasions when, having stated with 50GB on my main disk, I received a warning that I was running low. I checked and discovered that I had only 1.8GB remaining. Where the other 48GB’s had gone was anybody’s guess.
I had upgraded from OSX 10.6 to 10.7 Lion in order specifically to use iBooks Author for a new project, and thought that perhaps there may have been some clash with software already on the disk. Since I had, by then, no option I backed all my files up, reinitialised the main drive and ran a clean install of OSX Lion. I checked for updates and brought the newly installed system up to date.
I resumed working on my iBooks Author document, this time making a careful note of the disk space at start and at finish. After reinitialising I had 157.74GB a space available, and after working with IBA for about 2 hours, I rechecked to find that the available space had reduced to 141.12GB. The IBA file I was working with was graphic content rich, resulting in the IBA source file totalling 320+GB, so I ran a further experiment. I made a few minor changes and resaved the file 4 times, then checked on the amount of disk space remaining. I discovered that just over another 1GB had disappeared.
My conclusion is that your Version Save facility is saving a complete copy of the file on every auto-save, and since the accumulated saved file seems to be ‘hidden’ it is not possible to delete and regain the disk space. In the case of small text based ebooks this may not have been noticed, but in the case of large content rich publications it can become a serious problem in a very short space of time.
Have you noticed this yourself, and if so is there a workaround I can use to reclaim the lost space, or can I disable to auto-save. —-
If I ever get a reply or a solution I will post it here! Alternatively, has anyone else had this same problem and found a solution that doesn’t require a completely erasing and reinitialising of the hard drive.
I am using IBA on a Macbook Pro 2.4GH laptop. Other than this pretty in annoying issue, IBA is a nice little software package.
Herman,
For starters, thank you for the detailed post. I also use the Pro 2.4GHz and I too like you have upgraded to Lion just to use the iBooks Author. As I had stated in my first post, I did not save my work using ‘Save a Version’ facility. When I initially started the project I did save it once using the ‘Save a Version’ facility and deleted it after I made a few more modifications to the original. And I didn’t take note of the space used/lost.
However, after the whole issue of the disappearing source file, I made two more mock files, saved them, then saved them using ‘Save a Version’ etc. My testing didn’t quite shed light on the issue I was having as I had not published these mock-books, therefore the source files were still intact.
And then suddenly I had a pop-up saying it was out of disk space which was absurd ’cause I had not downloaded any new programs or loaded any new software – I had just been working on the dang iBA. It was only after reading your post did I realize what had happened. While my initial book was huge, the mock files had nothing in them, and even then it choked! So I can only imagine what it must be when you’re working with big files.
So now the question is:
Does it save a fresh copy
1) Everytime you hit ‘save’
2) Everytime it autosaves
3) Or only with the ‘Save A Version’ facility?
So now it looks like there is no way to hang on to a source file – it either gets gobbled up by iTunes Producer or save it and let it gobble up disk space. If you do get a response or figure out how to get back the lost disk space, please do share. And I hope u figure out!
Me no likey iBooks Author!!!
Hi Lav,
I have written to Apple on three occasions now regarding this problem and have not received any response, let alone any reply. Perhaps if anyone else who reads this post and has experienced the same problem were also to post the issue with Apple, they will get round to addressing it. Is this, for instance only happening with MacBook Pro 2.4GH laptops, or is it happening with every Mac? If just the MacBook Pro this might be a firmware issue that can be easily resolved, but if it is happening with every Mac regardless, this could turn out to be a serious problem for anyone using iBooks Author. The save function which is optional in other Mac applications has been completely replaced in iBA with the ‘save version’ function and, they as I have, I have discovered that it is not possible to switch it off.
I noticed a similar problem of disk space dissipation when Time Machine is activated, however, with Time Machine the ‘save’ file can be deleted since it is not a ‘hidden’ file. The ‘Save Version’ facility in iBooks Author appears to work in the same way as Time Machine and obviously shares a lot of the same program code. Perhaps an easy fix for Apple, while they work on fixing the problem permanently, could be to remove the ‘hidden file’ factor element, so that users can delete the file and get their disk space back. Once the problem has been resolved by Apple then an update to iBA could be made available.
BTW: many thanks for the ‘heads up’ on losing the source file when using iTunes Producer. I am due to upload my first book this weekend, so as a safety measure I will save a copy of the final source file off disk on a DVD and, just in case, I will save it under a different name to the source file.
This one could run and run, however, if enough of us keep pestering Apple to do something about it, eventually they will have to release a fix, even if only a temporary one. What annoys me most about this particular debacle is having not received any response from Apple, even if just to say they are working on the problem. I’m not sure this sort of poor customer relationship would have been tolerated when Steve Jobs was around. He knew how important it was to maintain a close eye on customer feedback and respond quickly.
iBooks Author disk eating problem solved – follow up
I have now managed to find a solution to the above mentioned disappearing disk space, and I would add that this was found through the Apple User Forum.
I was correct in that iBooks Author on each and every auto-save, saves a complete copy of the source file as a hidden Time Machine background file. However, Mr Blobby (username) came up with the cure since other Apple programs he is familiar with create the same problem.
As suspected the problem lay in the versioning and it cannot be switched off. Therefore each time you save, or use the autosave feature (that cannot be switched off) kicks in, a whole new invisible copy of your source file is created and saved on your disk, hence the storage can run down rapidly if the source file is big, as was mine.
The way to get the space back is as follows:
Open the IBA document and at the top of the screen you will see its title. Run your mouse pointer over to the right hand of the title and a small triangle will appear. When you click on this triangle an options list will appear. Scroll down to ‘Browse all Versions’ and click. This will bring up a Time Machine window with all the saved versions available to browse. In the left part of the window will be displayed the current document and on the right will be the save versions.
To get rid of the old versions, click the top Time Machine version and it will open to full screen. Once again, roll your pointer to the right of the title and a triangle will appear. Click it and it will give the option to ‘Delete this Version, and if you press and hold the ‘alt’ button on your keyboard the massage will toggle to ‘Delete all Versions’. Click Delete all Versions and all the disk space taken up by the versioning files will be released. The current file will remain unaffected.
Then, go out and make yourself a celebratory cup of coffee while breathing out a huge sigh of relief that you will not, after all, have to reinitialise your hard drive to get the space back.
A WORD OF WARNING:
If you try to solve the problem by making a copy of your source file and deleting the original file, you will not delete any of the Version Files, and you will also not be able to access the Version Files attached to the original file, or delete them from the copy. You will then be stuck with permanently lost space on your hard drive.
Apple could solve this simply in two ways. The first would be to make the Version Save feature optional. The other would be to make the Time Machine file created visible so that it can be selected from the Library folder and deleted manually. I have written to Apple suggesting this, but have as yet received no response.
ALSO:
If you now need to upload an IBA file to the iBooks Store using iTunes Producer, you will first have to upgrade your copy of iBooks Author (version 1.1), otherwise the upload process will bomb out.
Hope this helps
Thanks for the instructions. For a whole day I was getting nervous that I did something to my machine. Your tip worked like a charm – too late in the night for coffee but can go to sleep now