session changed on disk

[ExpertNovice]

Today the following "error" was received.

session changed on disk

Unfortunately, the wording may not be exact.
Any ideas what it means? I've searched documentation, forums, and google search but found no clue.

When it happened
The HDD is backed up to a USB drive.
BC3 is then used to "Merge Right" the backup USB drive with another (destined for offsite).
Nothing was writing to the first drive during the BC3 session.
Nothing but BC3 wrote to the second drive.


The merge completed; ending with the message above. A follow-up compare revealed no differences.

Thanks

Extra questions:
Is there a list of error messages and their meanings?
What is the location of the log? It was not found in the BC3 install folder.

[Chris]

The default "All Users" install of Beyond Compare stores session settings in "%appdata%\scooter software\beyond compare 3\BCSessions.xml".

If you selected "Create portable install" when you installed Beyond Compare, then session settings are stored in the installation folder as "BCSessions.xml".

The error message indicates the BCSessions.xml file was modified outside of your running copy of Beyond Compare. This could happen if you had a separate instance of Beyond Compare running, or if BCSessions.xml was modified by another program or by the sync operation.

Beyond Compare's default settings don't write the log pane in the Folder Compare and Folder Sync to a file. To make BC write the log to a file, select "Tools > Options". Go to the "Folder Views > Log" section. In "Automatically save messages to file", click the browse button and specify a log file name.

If you search our support page, some error messages are documented there, but we do not have a single reference with a comprehensive listing of error messages.

[ExpertNovice]

Chris,

Perfect answer, thank you!

I had performed a portable install and had looked in that XML file, and the others. After posting the "Automatically save messages to file" was found and set. Thanks for telling me about that. (Have never had a problem with BC but it will be interesting to see the log.)

Your description of the error message matches what I thought it might be but couldn't understand how. Perhaps I accidentally made a change and flagged the session as dirty. The saved session is exactly how I want it so all is well.

Thank you so much.

Godspeed,
Jim