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Recover projects

 

If you have trouble opening your NVivo project, you may be offered options to repair it or restore it from a project recovery file.

What do you want to do?

 

Prepare to repair or recover a project

There are a number of steps you can take to facilitate a successful project repair or recovery. You can make sure that:

  • You are only running one instance of NVivo

  • You have permissions to rename the project file

  • There is enough free disk space (about three times the size of your project)

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Repair or recover a project

If your project is compromised and you cannot open it normally, NVivo will prompt you to

  • Repair the project (if this is possible)

  • Restore the project from a project recovery file

You should attempt to repair the project if you are offered the option.

If NVivo cannot repair the project, you can choose to restore your project from a project recovery file. You can select which recovery file you want to restore (based on its timestamp) and the recovered project will be opened in NVivo.

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Understand where recovered projects are stored

A successfully repaired or restored project file will be stored in its original location.

The damaged project is renamed to identify it as the original file and is retained in its existing location.

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Understand how project recovery files are created

As you update and save your project, NVivo creates a 'project recovery file' to protect against loss of data. This is useful in situations where your project is compromised and you cannot open it—you will have the option to restore it from the project recovery file.

If you attempt to close NVivo while a project recovery file is being created, you will be prompted to wait.

You can change the default settings for project recovery files—refer to Save and copy projects (Set options for project recovery files) for more information.

NOTE  The creation of project recovery files can impact the performance of your project (depending on the size of your project and your computer's specifications). If you are experiencing slower performance, you can decrease the frequency at which project recovery files are created or turn them off all together.

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Recover a network project

If a project (stored on a network) becomes damaged and you cannot open it, NVivo checks to see if there is a more recent version of the project on your local machine and prompts you to open it.

If you choose to recover your project from this local copy, you are prompted to specify a new location for the recovered project.

If a local project does not exist, you are given other options for recovering your project—see Recover a project for more information.

Refer to Set save options for network projects for more information about how NVivo saves and updates network projects.

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Understand how to protect projects

To avoid problems with your project, you should:

  • Save your project regularly

  • Use the copy functionality to make regular project back-ups

  • Make sure your project is completely closed before shutting-down NVivo

  • Avoid working with your project on a USB flash drive (copy the project to your computer instead)

For more ideas about troubleshooting project problems, refer to the FAQs on the QSR website.

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