Troubleshooting

Overview

InkWeave uses auto-save; under normal circumstances you do not need to save manually. If content is lost due to accidental input (for example a pet stepping on the keyboard, or pressing Backspace by mistake), you can try to restore it from backup files in the project folder using the steps on this page.

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Restore chapter content from backup files

1. Open the project folder

In Project settings, choose Open Project Folder (the menu label is the same in English) to open that project’s file folder.

2. Find the matching JSON file

Inside the chapters folder, look for the .json file that corresponds to the lost content:

• The file name is usually a string of letters and numbers (for example in UUID form) with the .json extension.
• Look inside these JSON files (the ones without the .bak suffix): there is a field called title—check whether it matches the chapter title whose text you lost.
• Note down this base file name (the part without the .bak suffix).

3. Identify .bak backup files

Next to the same base name you may see several backup files, in a form like:

• filename.json.bak.1
• filename.json.bak.2
• …up to .bak.5 at most

Smaller numbers mean newer backups: .bak.1 is usually the backup from the most recent auto-save.

4. Rename to restore

1. First confirm which backup you want to restore (usually try .bak.1 first).
2. Rename that backup file to the original .json base file name; this overwrites the current file and restores that save point.

Example (replace with your actual file names):

Before restore (backup file):
f2fc17f9-8c73-4ab1-b427-5ff5d818e607.json.bak.1

After restore (final file name):
f2fc17f9-8c73-4ab1-b427-5ff5d818e607.json

In other words: remove the .bak.1 (or .bak.2, etc.) suffix and keep only .json, so that file becomes the one the project actually reads.

Caution

Renaming will overwrite the existing .json with the same name. If you are not sure, make a copy somewhere else first, then proceed.

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If even the chained backups are no longer what you need

If .bak.1 and even .bak.2 through .bak.5 have already been overwritten by later auto-saves and you still cannot recover the content you want, the backup mechanism cannot roll back any further.

So I strongly recommend that you learn Git. InkWeave is a Git-friendly desktop app: once you start using Git, it is very hard for your project to suffer damage you cannot recover from—so search for how to use Git; it is free, powerful, and I strongly recommend it:

• Learn to use Git or similar version control, and back up your project folder regularly;
• This greatly reduces the risk that content becomes hard or impossible to recover in practice.

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