You all know how this is. Files saved, FH can't open it later because file is
corrupted.

But know I'm on another approach:

File is still open in FH but I see it is corrupted in Explorer already, since
file size is 9kb and should be at least 5-6Mb by now. temp0-file is there of
course, as always when FH is making my life miserable.

The original file is lost and this is my second try... so I've been trough
most of the workarounds I know:

export as FH8-9
Save as
Not embedding images into FH file

File is a map with a lot of styles and symbols. File is also under version
control by Tortoise SVN but that has been working flawlesly for months.

so... file is there, I see it, i save it but if I close the file my work is
lost.

anyone?

Are you able to copy everything into a new document? Sometimes the document
structure is corrupt. If you turn on 'Remember layer info', group
everything, copy, paste into new document, ungroup, then your layers will be
preserved.

> File is a map with a lot of styles and symbols.

I would take a look at graphic elements in the file. Perhaps something you
are using in each map is corrupt.

I once had a complex graphic that was causing corrupt files. It contained
many nested groups that had been saved over many file revisions with
'remember layer info' turned on. I copied the graphic into a new document,
ungrouped and sorted it out. I turned off 'Remember layer info' and
regrouped. Problem solved.

Judy Arndt

Hi,
i use FH since 10 years and this problem of "corrupt file" happened to me only
once.
I have been able to open it with Illustrator CS3 recently ! and re-save it in
a FH accessible file.
:-)

PS.
My yesterday job was to lay out 13 posters presenting movies for a festival. A
mix of A3 vertical and horizontal and A2 vertical.
I started the job with inDesign but went back to FreeHand for its strength in
dealing with these types of layouts (different sizes, ability to jump swiftly
from a global view to a particular one. FH is so powerful and has so no match,
i'm already wondering at how i will have to buy a second hand computer in a
couple of years or so.
;-)
Boyan

thanks for all your help

Haven't been lucky so far.. my file is lost, but I discovered it early so I
didn't loose much work.

FH is acting unstable in a way I've never seen before now... I started all
over... drawing some paths and stuff, and tried to save the file. Nothing
happened. The file was not on my harddrive (path to folder was correct). After
two or three more tries the temp0-file showed up along with the corrupted 3kb
FH-file. temp0-file stays after saving of course.

Tried to do as you suggested Judy, copy into a new document but same thing
happened. The file was corrupted after saving.

This is what I've done so far
Clean install of FH (11.02updater refused to run though, even if it has done
so before)
Image on background not embedded
No nested groups
no clipping paths
working copy on local harddrive, versioned backup on server

I think I'll go through all the styles used in my "project Default-page".
Maybe there are some hidden secrets in there.

But then again... it seems this happens in cycles... every 6-8 months ... but
I'm not sure...
..........................................
I know exactly what you mean Boyan!! The "look and feel!" of FH is so
smooth... especially the basic drawing tools... the Pen tool.... it is sooo
excellent.. since I'm drawing a lot of maps in this project the choice was
obvious. The project is a 140-160 pages backcountry offpiste guide, somehow the
perfect InDesign project, I just needed the power of FH's path handling much
more than the page & text handling in InD. I just split the chapters in
seperate FH files and merge it later in Acrobat. A breeze.

I haven't tried AI CS3 yet but they say it has much of FH's features in it.
Anyway.. going to dedicate one computer to Freehand and keep it for life

I'll keep you posted about the Styles clean up!

> FH is acting unstable in a way I've never seen before now...

Tinius, I wouldn't waste time checking styles before you get FH acting
normally on new test files.

Have you removed the FH Preferences file?

Before any reinstallation of FH, it's important to remove FreeHand's
Settings folder, because all of these settings, including Preferences are
not overwritten with reinstall. If there are corrupt settings, they remain.
That may be why the updater will not work.

On a PC, the Settings are here:
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia\FreeHand
MX\11\English\Settings

You may need to do some hard drive maintenance. On a Mac we verify and
repair disk permissions.

Judy Arndt

Judy,

do you mean removing the Settings folder completely or just the FHprefs file?

> do you mean removing the Settings folder completely or just the FHprefs file?

I mean removing the Settings folder altogether. It holds preferences for
your Toolbars and Panels and Keyboard, plus document templates. Any of these
files can become corrupt, causing problems.

You don't have to delete the folder from your system, just move it to a
different directory so the FH application won't find it. Then reinstall FH,
which will create a brand new Settings folder with new preference files.
Before changing any preferences, test FH to see if it works.

If this makes no difference, you can safely replace the new settings folder
with the old one, and have all your old custom settings back again.

Judy Arndt

Everything seems to be stable now. FH is saving properly again without having
to reinstall. But I did some testing before I read your reply Judy, and found
out the following:

Created a new document
Imported all of the styles used in the project
saved file - no problem
Then I imported all of the symbols used in the project
Saved file again - temp0 file appeared and file is corrupt

Then I imported the symbols one by one and saved between imports. FH started
to create corrupted files instantly when a Master Page was imported.

Next stage:
Created a new document and imported that particular Master Page and tried to
save document. FH kind of flashed and temp0-file appeared in Test Folder.
Document in FH still named "Untitled" even though I gave it a file name and
tried to save it. temp0-file the only file in test folder.

So what's causing my problem seems to be a Master Page. The Master Page is
extremely simple with a rectangle covering the entire page and another
rectangle making a band in the upper part of the page. No fancy stuff what so
ever.

Going to make a new Master Page just to see if this was caused by this
specific file or not.

Thanks for your help Judy!! I'll keep you posted

The problem was caused by one or two Master Pages. I removed them and FH is now
stable.

I can still not understand what was causing the problems concerning the Master
Pages. A rectangle covering the whole page just go make a background color, and
a rectangle in the upper part forming a header background. Maybe corrupted file
structure as you said Judy since the Master Pages are FH-documents.

Another point here is how to avoid losing files in the future. I have been
using a version control application for about 6 months and it is working like a
dream.

Tortoise SVN is freeware and has loads of features. Most important it enables
you to revert to a working version (or any version) of a file.

Original files on server (or in local directory)
Version Repository on another location on server (or locally)
Working copies of files on local harddrive

So when a file gets corrupted it happens locally. Then you just revert to an
earlier version stored at the server..

My problem was that I couldn't save the new file in the first place so I
didn't have an earlier version to revert to.

Anyway....

Again .. thanks Judy