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JMP Keeps Reverting to the JMP Application Folder when Saving (Solution stopped working)

mdawson69

I originally posted this issue two days ago:

OK, so this just cropped up this evening and it is seriously putting the brakes on my workflow. I had just completed working with a data set yesterday and up to that point I had no issues. Now I am dealing with a different, but similar data set, and JMP has begun behaving weird when I attempt to save graphs. Depending on what subset of the data I am dealing with, I have a folder hierarchy set up for storing graphs generated from JMP. My workflow is,

Export a graph from a report or Graph Builder into the associated folder as an SVG file.
Open the SVG file in Affinity Designer to clean up the graph; for some strange reason, when exporting to SVG, the graphs will include the graph elements toolbar from Graph Builder or the collapsable headers from reports.
Export the corrected SVG replacing the copy generated from JMP.
Add the graph to a worksheet in an Excel summary workbook; most people in our company do not use JMP, so distributing journals is not an option.

The problem that arose this evening is that when I attempt to save a graph, the path shown in the Save Report As dialog box is correct, but after I save the graph and attempt to open it in Affinity Designer, it is not in the directory to which it was saved. I have confirmed in both Finder and Windows Explorer that the file does not exist where it should have been saved. (Note: I checked both file managers, as I run JMP in a Windows virtual machine on a Mac and have never had any such problem prior to tonight in the 4+ years that I have worked in this way.) I spent a considerable amount of time racking my brain trying to figure out why JMP was suddenly not saving graphs after 3+ months of doing so hundreds of times for two reports as well as the project on which I am currently working.

I quit JMP and relaunched it. No resolution. I restarted Windows. No resolution. Then I noticed something: the first time I attempted to save I would select the path and the file was not saved in the selected directory, but when I reopened the Save Report As dialog, I saw that the path was This PC › Local Disk (C:) › Program Files › SAS › JMP › 14. When I looked at the contents of that folder in Windows Explorer, there indeed were the graphs I saved. As I have the Mac version of Affinity Designer, I cannot access files on the virtual C drive—Windows standard folders (e.g., Desktop, Downloads, Documents, and Pictures) are mapped to their Mac equivalents, so by default, nothing I save should be saved to a virtual drive that only Windows can see—, so I have to move the files to a folder that is mapped to macOS.

Up until tonight, JMP has behaved as expected when saving graphs and the Save Report As dialog behaved as expected: the folder last used was always pointed to by default and if I changed the folder that was where the file was placed. Now I have to go through the hassle of using Windows Explorer to copy the graph from the JMP 14 application folder so that I can open the graph in Affinity Designer—files cannot be moved from the application folder, a location to which no user should be able save anything—, and then delete the copy in the JMP application folder.

Any ideas on why JMP keeps forcing saves to its application folder?

In response, ledi_trutna posted:

Has your default save as directory somehow been reset to default in the preferences?
Look at File > Preferences > File locations. And try to set the Save As directory to the one you want to see if that will fix the problem.

When I saw the response, I remembers that I had set a path for JMP Help, as I have not been able access JMP help from within the software (Help ▸ JMP Help). It did not work, and I went about my business until I attempted to exporta graph and the issue noted above began. As I usually do not alter anything in the File Locations preferences, I clicked Reset to Defaults. That appeared to work.

After exporting a few graphs this evening, the issue of JMP exporting to This PC › Local Disk (C:) › Program Files › SAS › JMP › 14 when I have selected a completely different path started up again. I tried reseting to defaults and setting a fixed path to no avail. This issue is making it extremely difficult for me to continue my work.

Why is this happening?

Accepted answers

All comments

gzmorgan0

JMP saves to last used path, either opened or closed. If I opened a JMP session, opened a sample data set and even if logged off, when I start up the save as directory will be the last one used.

Run this line:

Set Default Directory("c:\temp\" );

Then when you save it will go to that path, until you open a different path.

Alternately, in JMP 14.2 the Preferences > Files, set Save As Directory.

If you run other programs that call up your a version of JMP from your PC, that script could be resetting your preferences. Just speculating, since I have seen this scenario in the past.

mdawson69

@gzmorgan0 wrote:
JMP saves to last used path, either opened or closed. If I opened a JMP session, opened a sample data set and even if logged off, when I start up the save as directory will be the last one used.

Thanks for your response.

Yes, that is the normal behavior for just about any software and it was the norm in JMP until the issue I described began occurring Sunday evening. Not including the project on which I am currently working, since November, I have exported 237 SVG versions of graphs for one report and 122 for another report. In actuality, the number of exports exceeded the total of the 359 total figures, as the graphs exported from JMP need to be edited to remove extraneous elements and the height-width dimensions need to be fine-tuned so that the graphs have the proper sizing and aspect ratio tom be imported into the placeholders within the report in Word.

One thing I forgot to mention in the original posting, was that when this issue started, the path in the Save Report As dialog box was the last path selected, as expected, but when I attempted to open the saved SVG file in Affinity Designer, the saved graph was not in the folder to which I saved it. When I attempted to export again, that was when I noticed that the path had been changed to the application folder for JMP 14, despite the fact that 1) I never did and never would save to that location, and 2) no preference was set up (by me) to automatically save to that directory.

@gzmorgan0 wrote:
Run this line:
Set Default Directory("c:\temp\" );
Then when you save it will go to that path, until you open a different path.
Alternately, in JMP 14.2 the Preferences > Files, set Save As Directory.

I have some experience with JSL, but how do I just run a line as you suggested?

Before leaving for an appointment this morning, I quit JMP, completely shut down my Windows 10 VM, and then shut down my iMac. When I returned and started everything back up, JMP reverted to saving exported graphs to the directory I selected, as it should. Interestingly, when I was quitting JMP, one of the data tables had not yet been saved, and when it was, the JMP data table was saved to the correct directory. So either something corrected itself overnight or the issue is only occurring when exporting from a JMP report.

In terms of preferences, as I noted in one of my original posts, setting default paths is something I have generally never done, so whatever is there, is there. Any time I have ever looked, except for the Installation directory, which is set to C:\Program Files\SAS\JMP\14, all the default paths are blank by default. I pretty much never set anything in the File Location preferences, and until Sunday evening that was never an issue since I have been using JMP as far back as version 10 or 11. Setting a path for JMP Help, which did not work, should not have resulted in JMP forcing exports to go to the installation directory even when I explicitly select a specific folder. Also, for any given project where heavy usage of JMP is required, I have a a folder structure for various resources, so the last thing I want is JMP having a fixed default folder for saving.

@gzmorgan0 wrote:
If you run other programs that call up your a version of JMP from your PC, that script could be resetting your preferences. Just speculating, since I have seen this scenario in the past.

When I first started using JMP and was mostly ignorant of what it could do, Excel continued to play a major role in my data preparation, and I would use the JMP Excel add-in to create data tables. Since 2013/2014, I have pretty much removed Excel from my workflow bringing data directly into and explicitly performing preparation, visualization, and analysis in JMP. The only use I have for Excel, in terms of analytical work, is as a means to provide summary tables to co-workers, as most do not use JMP, and therefore cannot view JMP journals.

mdawson69

Here are some screenshots that may help.

The settings shown above are the defaults for my installation. In general, I never touch the File Locations preferences.

Save Report As with My Path.png

Above is the Save Report As window with the file path of the folder to which I want the SVG file saved. After saving, I check the folder and see,

No File in Selected Folder.png

Both the Windows Explorer (foreground) and macOS Finder (background) show no file saved to the selected directory.

Save Report As - JMP 14 Application Folder.png

When I again attempt an export I see the path shown in the screenshot above despite the fact that I never selected the JMP application directory. The path I previously selected should appear, but instead JMP keeps changing the path to C:\Program Files\SAS\JMP\14.

mdawson69

I uninstalled JMP 14.2, re-installed JMP 14, ran the JMP 14.2 updated, and the problem has persisted. 🤬🤯

stan_koprowski

Hi @mdawson69,

Please open a case with JMP technical support (support@jmp.com)

They are better served to assist you further.

Stan

mdawson69

Already done, thanks.