Autosave stops working in AutoCAD - SOLVED

Causes:

Autosave can be temporarily turned off and then not be turned on again due to a script or operation which turned it off not completing successfully. For example, some LISP routines turn autosave off at the beginning, run some commands, and then turn it back on when finished. If the LISP routine does not complete or is interrupted, autosave will not be turned on again. There are also a number of operations in AutoCAD that turn autosave off while the command is executing (for example, in the Block Editor). If the program crashes while autosave is temporarily turned off, it remains off.

Solution:

On the command line in AutoCAD, type SAVETIME and set it to 1 minute and then make a change in a drawing and wait to see if the autosave occurs. Press F2 in AutoCAD to display the text window to see the command line feedback that indicates an autosave occurred. It may be that changing the autosave time will restore the program to acknowledge the feature again. 

For AutoCAD 2016 and later: 

Configure the autosave variable to be monitored:

1. On the command line in AutoCAD, type SAVETIME and set it to the desired setting (the default is 10 minutes).
2. Type the SYSVARMONITOR command to open the System Variable Monitor, and then click Edit List.  
3. In the left pane, search for SAVETIME in the Available System Variables list.  
4. Select the >> button to move the SAVETIME system variable to the Monitored System Variables list.  
5. Click OK twice.

Now if the SAVETIME variable is ever changed, the System Variable Monitor status bar icon will be displayed, and the monitored system variables can be reset back to their preferred values. Additionally, set SYSMON to 2 to see a balloon alert notification whenever monitored variables change. 

Script command 

To keep autosave on, create a LISP file that runs each time AutoCAD starts up. 

1. Create a new text file using Notepad and paste in the following line of code:
   (setvar "SAVETIME" 15)
2. Save and close the file and then rename it to acaddoc.lsp. Be sure it does not end with .lsp.txt after renaming (right-click > properties to see the full file name). 
3. Put the acaddoc.lsp file in the AutoCAD support folder (e.g., C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 20xx\Support).

Note: AutoCAD LT does not support scripting.