This version 1.5 is rather only for testing, is unstable ... For big and important projects better use 1.4.3 stable.
However in 1.5's defence - and as leaf says above - it's still in development and there are plenty of warnings not to use it for production/important jobs.
That's true, but for print I need PDF/X1a, which only 1.5 can make. And, of course, once the most up to date (working) copy is saved in 1.5, it can't be re-opened in 1.4.
Did you try opening the last auto-saved document? It might contain what was lost, or at least quite a bit of it depending on when it auto-saved.
Yes, I was actually sane enough to do that. The odd thing was that the only auto-saved copy I could find appeared to be weeks old.
Either way, I'm very sorry to hear that you've lost a load of work. I know what that feels like.
On the other hand, the loss of hundreds of text frames does sound like a major bug that should really be looked at before 1.5 is officially released. Something like that getting into production code would be a disaster for Scribus' reputation.
If you have a Mantis logon I would suggest adding it as something to be looked at very soon. If not, you could try the Scribus IRC (irc://irc.freenode.net/#scribus) community and someone might post it for you if you can provide a "walk through" of what happened.
Again, I feel for your loss. You must be very angry and frustrated.
I appreciate the kind commiserations. I know using 1.5 is a risk, but this is the first time something like this has happened. I used 1.5 to make my PDF copy for my last book, also proof corrections and had no problems. This time really strange things are happening. Undo has always gotten me out of jams in the past but today it was always greyed out.
Of the lost text frames, mostly it was all the left hand page headings and page numbers, which isn't too bad to fix. I lost one column in the index which will be a headache, also several random text frames. Hopefully I can salvage quite a bit of it from my last 1.4 copy.
I'm not familiar with Mantis or IRC, but I agree it should at least be brought to the attention of those who need to know.
Thank you for the responses. It's nice to at least know folks are listening.