Has this always been the case? I just lost some work as follows: I created a comment and filled it with everything I had learned in making the patch, but before clicking outside the comment (i.e. committing it) I hit ctrl-S and then exited Pd. To my surprise, the next time I opened the patch, all my notes were gone. Only an empty comment object remained.

Once I had figured out what had happened, I tried the same with an object with similar results: put a new object, typed "osc~ 200" into it but before clicking outside, hit ctrl-S and exited. Only an uninitialized object is saved.

In both cases, hitting ctrl-S makes the asterisk following the patch name go away. If this isn't recent behavior, I wonder how I developed this keyboard habit?

@jameslo When this one got me a few days ago I immediately knew the exact cause and I have no memory of having to figure out the cause, generally means ancient bug which dates back to the times when I was too green to differentiate between a bug and my own ignorance.

@jameslo Never used ctrl-S, which must I suppose mean, that I have always been committed.
My psychiatrist never answers my calls though.
I feel sorry for your loss of the comment.... infuriating....
David.

yes. its not a finished object until it has been clicked away from/left somehow,

this is how I get a loadbang to fire after its already been made, I add a space behind it [loadbang ] and when instantiates back to [loadbang] it sends another bang

I guess it just helps to hit the save shortcut more than less.

also your text will be reformatted to pure data's liking;
;
will;
be like enter;
blank space will be obliterated, well as 0's. numbers will be turned into 32 bit floats. so you just end up giving up trying to write 1,000,000

you can cut/paste a text or message object to see what it will look like after you have closed/saved the patch