I was using waterfox classic, tiddlywiki 5.2 edition, with tiddlyfox plugin (old one)… when i went to save it this time, something happened and the browser crashed. I think it ran out of ram
When i went to open the file - it ws 0 BYTES! 0! how can I recover it? I’ve not touched the computer or disk.
update:
ok recuva is seeing the file at the proper size and says its not overwritten - but when i ‘recover’ it - its 0 bytes
I feel for your situation. 0 Bytes is potentially total loss, its effectively corruption.
Perhaps your only hope is if you had a backup, manual or automatic. But you are possibly “behind the eight ball” / at a disadvantage using the older solutions because since we moved on from the original TiddlyFox there are a much richer set of solutions, often with backups built in.
Check there is no backup.
Check your browser has any “local storage” remnants.
If this means a great loss to you, As you say, be carful and see if you can find a temp file before you make too many changes on your storage. I have lost and never found things and this will not necessarily have any results.
There is a chance if you find the file located on disk that the bytes that follow are the old content. With a direct to disk editor (dont install it, run from USB)
5.2.0 introduces some architectural changes that may not survive the older savers.
@TW_Tones thnx for the reply!
there is no backup! it crashed just as i was saving it
… browser has any “local storage” remnants…
see if you can find a temp file
how do i do this? where is the ‘temp’ file or the browser local storage?
There is a chance if you find the file located on disk that the bytes that follow are the old content. With a direct to disk editor (dont install it, run from USB)
what is a direct disk editor? can you suggest one thats portable?
Hi, @lostdata. I’ve had this happen before, too. 
Any chance you’ve deleted a copy of this TiddlyWiki before and have a previous version sitting in your Recycle Bin you could recover?
Do you have any sort of automated backup running on that machine? Time Machine, Acronis, Norton Ghost, or anything like that? (I’m guessing not, or you’d have mentioned that already — but it’s always worth asking in case there’s something you haven’t thought of.)
If the TiddlyWiki was saved in your Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or OneDrive folder, you may be able to log onto that service’s Web site, find the 0-byte version of the file, and click to see if your cloud storage service has a previous version available. (Most of the services nowadays keep at least one previous version, I believe.)
You may be able to right-click on the 0-byte file and view Properties » Previous Versions (tab). If Windows is preserving version backups, there might be something there.
In the absence of that, I might try the free version of Recuva:
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva
… which you can put on a USB drive and point toward the directory where your TiddlyWiki was saved. It may be able to recover a version of it, especially if you haven’t done much computing since the error occurred.
thnx for all the suggestions!
Any chance you’ve deleted a copy of this TiddlyWiki before and have a previous version sitting in your Recycle Bin you could recover
no
Do you have any sort of automated backup running on that machine?
no
You may be able to right-click on the 0-byte file and view Properties » Previous Versions (tab). If Windows is preserving version backups, there might be something there.
will try but i think its off!
In the absence of that, I might try the free version of Recuva:
yes i was just trying that … i hope this works!
Do you mean Waterfox 5.2, or TiddlyWiki 5.2.0 ? If the latter, then you must have had a previous copy of your file that you upgraded to 5.2.0. Maybe that old copy is sitting around?
thnx for reply!
no i started from 5.2 version
ok recuva is seeing the file at the proper size and says its not overwritten - but when i ‘recover’ it - its 0 bytes
Dangit! That’s just the current version, most likely.
EaseUS makes a good recovery tool that has a trial version you might be able to use. I believe I’ve gotten mangled files back with it before. This seems to be where you can get it:
https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm
Thnx! Will try this now…i hope this can actually recover it!
Fingers crossed over here.
Since you only started with version 5.2.0, I’m hoping you haven’t spent the last couple of days obsessively pouring content into your TiddlyWiki and tweaking it — but I think that’s exactly how so many of us fell in love with it in the first place. (Likely including getting our first heart-stopping 0-byte save error.)
look for folders in your user folders or the under the browser and search for files say today and yesterday. See if any are a similar size of filename and peek inside, you may stumble across at least part of your content.
I tend to find these as needed but follow the others suggestions on recovery tools, on this.
Can you guess what we would all say?
Time to setup a newer browser/saver and backups regime inside tiddlywiki or for you whole computer.
If it is only recent content you may be better spending the time doing the above and re-enteing what you can remember before its too late.
Best of luck