Make sure you are not trying to save to a folder that is read-only. You could change your preferences to save autosave files on your desktop (temporarily) to test this.

thanks for the response..... but no luck:

the folder its trying to save is NOT a read-only....  and I took your suggestion and changed the autosave file to desktop... that still made no difference.    to be clear here is the verbatim message that is popping up:

the document "etude 9" could not be autosaved. the file doesnt exist

changes will not be saved until this problem is resolved

kind thanks for any help you can give...

btw this is a mac machine, ,mojave system

Can you save or export your file as XML to be sure you have a way to get it back?

(Did you by any chance leave Finale open while your computer went into Sleep mode?)

yes I have left finale open many times when the computer goes into sleep mode... is that bad?

It is safer to close programs when not using them (other than system programs like virus protection). Not everyone does so, but that's their decision.

>btw this is a mac machine, ,mojave system<

Many of us never let our Macs go to sleep except for the display (that's what uses the most energy at idle). If your Mac is a portable, that's not really an option as it affects battery life but, for the rest of us, it is.

In Mojave, you check Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off and Enable Power nap so that anything it needs to do it will.

Uh......  please forgive this following rant.   I know you are all trying to help and I appreciate it.   I freely acknowledge this IS a rant:

all of you .....   are not helping!  I have used a Mac since late 1980's, I studied finale in college, I owned probably VERSION 1 of finale.

I KNOW this information about not leaving apps open that you are repeatedly telling me, or about not putting display asleep.  NONE of that information changes the fact that 1 month ago my autosave successfully always found the original file to save it.   NOW it repeatedly tells me it can not find files.... either brand new created files or old ones from years ago.   SOMETHING has changed in this new version and so far it has not been identified.

I apologize for the rant.   if someone can share some information about the CURRENT state of autosave I would be incredibly appreciative.   Please assume I understand finale pretty well.

>SOMETHING has changed<

Agreed.

>in this new version and so far it has not been identified.<

Probably not. If so, a whole slew of users would be complaining about this—and they're not. If the problem was 26, Autosave would not work great over Catalina on my MBP and over Mojave on my iMac Pro.

There are many possible causes so start from the most obvious which is that the last installation—or something else you've recently installed—corrupted a pathway.

I would a) reinstall Finale 26 into the default location. This should rebuild any broken paths. Reboot. Next, shut down and do a Safe Boot which will fix any other broken paths. Reboot again.

See if you still have a problem. You shouldn't.

Michael Varner,

It seems that no one else here is having the same problem.

Which indicates that the culprit is something specific to your hardware/software combination.

Perhaps it is time to contact the folks in MakeMusic’s Tech Support.

They know a lot about hardware/software specific problems.

I am also having this problem and it is new.  Because work has been sparse in the last year, not sure when it started.  I have the lastest version of Finale and have upgraded to Big Sur operating system.  I have pointed the AutoSave to an AutoSave folder in a Finale folder in my Docs folder.  Please help.