I finally find the will to start a new project, and once I’ve built a church and two houses on a hill, blender crashes. And, of course, the recover last session didn’t work either.
Well, screw that.
[/rant]
save as ya go…
Or smash the computer up,
toss it out the window xD
Adding to what Michael W said, and strongly agreeing with it, there probably still is a way to recover your work.
If you did any test renders, then Blender saved a recovery file in the tmp folder. (In the C/ directory in Windows.) The only problem is that their named with seemingly (I say seemingly, because I see no relevance in time or date) random numbers. To get past this, go to open, go to the tmp folder, and set it to order by editing time, the file at the top should be ahead of the “quit” file (which is what should have loaded when you pressed Recover last session.) Open that file, and it should be your work.
I just figured this out from experience. I think all of us has been absent minded enough to not save in the past. Hope it helps. 
bumping this up, cause I got a feeling he doesn’t know he got advice.
They never do …
I hear that if you throw your computer out the window and it shatters into pieces when it lands you can run out there and pick up your files.
I’ve always been a bit confused as to what ‘recover last session’ is actually meant to do. The reason for this is that I can’t honestly recall a time when it actually recovered the last thing I was working on…
So is it buggy or what?
Yes, I know how frustrating it can be to lose a project
Here are some things I have done to help me minimize losses after Blender crashes:
Even though I use different paths in Blender (under Preferences), on Windows systems I create a c: mp subdirectory as Blender installs, at least in the past, have always seemed to target a “t[e]mp” directory that does not exist by default in Windows.
This temporary subdirectory eventually contains a bunch a numerical .blend files. Navigating to that directory within Blender and sorting filenames by time brings up the most recent project (which is often not, for whatever reason, the same as “Recover Last Session”).
Periodically, I delete these temporary files, since they can stay there indefinitely.
If you do open up a temporary file in anything other than your regular Blender projects subdirectory, you need to navigate back to that location on your drive and then save (changing the filename first to something you will recognize).
I change the Autosave rate to something between 3 to 5 minutes. Anything faster than this (especially if you are sculpting) can diminish Blender’s performance and response time.
On Linux, I change Blender’s temp folder path preference to point to a custom path in my home directory. Why? Because if Blender crashes, Linux seems to remove any temporary files associated with the program once it stops running.
Having the custom temp directory Blender preference in Linux preserves temporary files indefinitely (as in the Windows example above) until you are done with them and choose to delete them.
If you’re doing high-poly work (or working with large scenes) and have little hard drive space, you will probably want to clear out the temporary files on a regular basis.
In terms of workflow, whenever I feel I’ve reached a good stopping point, I try to save a new file (numbering it something like file2.blend, file3.blend…).
Doing this has several advantages, including having a sort of extended “undo,” where you can go back to an earlier stage of a work if necessary.
Another thing I do with file names:
Since there have been numerous versions of Blender over the years, I have gotten into the habit of appending a “-b248” or “-b249” at the end of file names so I know at a glance what version of Blender I was using at the time and can open it in that version of Blender again if necessary.
Why? Even though Blender has retained amazing backward compatibility, adjustments in the code (e.g. nodes or lighting) or other areas have sometimes lead to different results when bringing in an older .blend file into a newer version of Blender.
In any event, I wish you well with your work!
Take care,
RobertT
Ignore the false error about not being able to load the recent backup. Just go to your Temp directory and sort by date. Your numbered file is there.
I read it. I didn’t feel the need to respond.
Also, that doesn’t work, there’s no blend file in the TMP directory.
if you have autosave on, they are saved in the folder specified in the File Paths Temp folder name. usually it is Temp, not tmp, on windows machines.
Well, I’m not on a bloody windows machine.
then if you want get linux… It’s free. I use Fedora 11, Ubunto is also good, blender hasn’t crashed on me yet 
I wouldn’t switch to linux for something like that. There is little to no software for linux; that would definitely not be worth getting rid of my hard drive for.
or go to church and slap the priest …
I’m not slapping the priest, I’m slapping the missionary.
I find that hitting ctrl+W takes about 1/10th of a second so I do it often. 
thats something youd dont see often in a church :eek:
I’m not in a church. Since when was I in your church, you bunch of fanboy twats?