Corrupted file?

[bwlker]

I seem to have developed a corrupted cp file.  I can play it, I can edit many of its contents, like text boxes and timelines. But as soon as I try to edit a click box or create a new click box, I get a message telling me that captivate has stopped working and the program closes.

Any advice about what I have done to make this happen?

Are there any rebuilding utilities?

As always, thanks in advance for all your help-

Betsy

[Lilybiri]

You could try to create a new blank project (same dimensions) and copying slide per slide to this new project. This could perhaps resolve the problem.

Lilybiri

[bwlker]

Good suggestion. I did create a blank project and imported all the slides over, which didn't help. But perhaps if I go slide by slide I can determine the culprit here.

Thanks for the good idea

Betsy

[bwlker]

Well, just as a followup, copying slide by slide didn't change anything. It was a good suggestion, but it just taught me that the file is really not usable.

So strange... I can edit it with other objects, I can change things on the timeline, I can even publish it. I can run it and interact with it. But I can no longer do anything with click boxes, which are very important to how I develop my projects. I then discovered that ANOTHER of my cp files had the same problem. I panicked, thinking maybe some virus has corrupted ALL my files, but going through my other projects, just those two seem to be effected.

So I will have to reconstruct them. This will be a lot of work, but I can do it.

I would be REALLY grateful if anyone can tell me if they've seen this problem before and if you know how I caused this to happen...

Gracias-

Betsy

[Guest]

Hi Betsy,

Try removing the click boxes from your project and adding these back manually (Insert > Standard Objects > Click Box...) I have seen a number of instances where for some reason it is the actual click boxes that have become corrupted rather than the project itself.

BTW. If you are using Adobe Captivate 4, then you could also try removing the file suffix .bak from the backup file Captivate automatically creates and seeing if you can use that project file.

Best - Mark

<a href="http://macrofireball.blogspot.com/"><strong>Visit the macrofireball blog</strong></a>

[bwlker]

Hi Mark-

Thanks for this reply and good suggestion. Following your idea, I opened one of the two corrupted cp files and deleted all the click boxes. Save it. Closed it. Closed Captivate (v4). Reopened the file and all I have to do is click once on the click box tool and Captivate stops working and closes itself.  So ... it was a good thing to try, but didn't correct the problem.

I'll start the rebuilds this week. But gosh, it would be GREAT if there were a repair utilitity out there somewhere....

Something else for me to add to the wish list, I guess!

Betsy

[bwlker]

Well, it's happened again. I deleted the two corrupted files. I rebuilt the first one successfully and began work this evening on the second one. About 1/3 of the way into it, Adobe crashed on me again and now if I reopen that file, I cannot create or edit any click boxes. I am able identify exactly when this occured. I was copying objects from one slide to another. As I issued the paste command, the cp file blew.

I think I may have been attempting to copy multiple objects (captions and click boxes), when this happened the first time, too.  So now I will be certain to not attempt to copy groups of objects from one slide to another ever again. It seems to be okay sometimes, but not worth the risk of losing so much work.

So ... just a heads-up to other users. Be careful!

Betsy

[bwlker]

And yet again.

I have started this cp file AGAIN. This time I have not copied any objects between slides. I've been building everything from scratch on every slide, even if it's an object that is part of a repeated theme in my presentation. Halfway through my work session, Adobe Captivate quit working.  I have checked my laptop to be sure no viruses are at play here.

I am really really discouraged and questioning if I can afford to put so much time into such an unstable tool. I love the product when it works, but I am losing hours - no - days of my time.

I am going to try Adobe support and have them create a "web case" for me, although I have found these forums to be much more valuable. You all are great.

Does anyone have experience/feedback on the best way to get real actual help/responses from the Adobe team?

Thank you all for your continued support-

Betsy

[IHeartCaptivate]

Hi! I have actually been kind-of having this problem myself. Mine crashes when I take too many backgrounds into Photoshop to edit them. I was able to edit, but I couldn't record new slides or import new ones in or export the old ones out. But then on a random whim - I opened up Captivate, Help, Updates and installed the update that was posted and now I haven't seen the problem in a few days. I think I was trying to do to much in Captivate and it was a big project and so it all came crashing down. I don't know how big your project was, but for me I try to keep mine all b/t 70-80 slides with medium quality audio. Hope something in all that helped At least you know you weren't alone!

[Captiv8r]

Hey Betsy

I don't see anywhere in this thread where the question I'm about to ask has been raised.

Where exactly is your project when you are working on it? If you were to just open Captivate, then click File > Open, where would you navigate to locate the project file?

If you come back and say it's on a drive with a letter other than C: or perhaps D:, that's likely your issue with corruption of the project. You always need to work locally. Never on the LAN.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[bwlker]

Hi there Rick and ...?

Thanks for these emails. Rick, I save all my projects to the folder that Captivate sets up on installation, which is on the C:\ drive. So --- good thought, and something for me to remember, but not the culprit at this time.

Don't know the other poster's name, but it was sort of a releif to read that you have been experiencing a similar problem to mine. Not that I'm GLAD that someone else has this issue, but it did make me feel a little bit less alone!

I have spent 5+ hours on the phone yesterday and today with Adobe tech support. So far nothing they have suggested has helped. But today they connnected me with a support article that has a number of things for me to try. If anything works, you can be sure that I will post it here.  Frankly, most of the techs I spoke with had difficulty wrapping their brains around my problem. But the last couple of guys seemed to understand my plight and I am hopeful that somewhere out there is my answer.

I would hate to give up working with Captivate. I love the product and results when things work. But I have already lost days of my time due to these corrupted files and I hate to commit myself to more projects when I don't know if they'll fail at any unforeseen moment.

Let's hope I find my answer and I'll certainly post it here.

Thank you ALL for your support. It helps me keep pluggin' away at this!

Betsy

[Captiv8r]

Hi again Betsy

bwlker wrote:

Hi there Rick and ...?

Thanks for these emails. Rick, I save all my projects to the folder that Captivate sets up on installation, which is on the C:\ drive. So --- good thought, and something for me to remember, but not the culprit at this time.

Just to be totally safe, you might double-check that. Captivate normally tries to save in the "My Documents" folder. Depending on your setup, My Documents may be on your C drive or it may be on a network drive.

Certainly won't hurt to try this. You might create a folder called Projects off the root level of your C drive. Then create a folder for each project. But for now, only the one. Close Captivate and move the .CP file to this location. Then restart Captivate and open the project. See if working from the new location changes or improves anything.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[bwlker]

Hi again Rick-

Thanks again for your interest and support. I am absolutely sure these files are stored locally, because this laptop is not networked to anything. It's a stand-alone deal here in my home office. I do have another computer, but the two are not linked in any way. (And, yes, I have tried Captivate on the other computer, too. It still "crashes" unpredictably...)

{{Sigh}} I'm still working on the list of suggestions in the knowledge base troubleshooting article. It's rather a long piece with a lot of stuff to try.

Betsy

[IHeartCaptivate]

Hi Betsy - so I got my error again today! Boo!! I'm back in the boat with you. Promise me you will post any results you get from going through that list from the troubleshooting article - I'm starting on it today!!

Erin

[Captiv8r · Accepted solution]

Hi folks

Not to continue thrashing a deceased equine here, but have any of you attempted my suggestion of creating a location near the root of the drive?

C:\Projects\ProjectName1

C:\Projects\ProjectName2

etc.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[IHeartCaptivate]

Hi Rick - I just tried it with my bad file and it didn't change anything. I always work off of my own hard drive while in Captivate, and all my files are just located on my desktop in a folder. Yes it didn't help with this bad one - but do you think I should move them all to right off the C drive to maybe help prevent this from happening again?

I'm going to attach a screen shot of the error I'm seeing - Betsy is this what you see too? What happens exactly to me is: Captivate will go all white, and the error box appears says Adobe has encountered a problem and needs to close. Blah blah blah, and then at the bottom it says to see the error click here, when I do the first error window appears, and then I click the "click here" and then the second window appears.

Thoughts?

Erin

[bwlker]

Hi Erin-

The error message that I get has more of a Vista look to it. Are you on an XP system? I did try installing Captivate on my XP computer and on that system, the message details looked somewhat like yours.

I have moved my data to a folder in the root of C. I have also started absolutely fresh on my project. I have a lot of work to do that all starts the same, so I had been copying the first seven slides of each project so I would not have to reinvent the wheel.  But DANG, this wheel has been reinvented so many times at this point, starting fresh doesn't seem so bad.

So far .... so good!  Yaaaayy!

I'll report back again when the project is complete.  (Notice I said "when" not "if"?  Power of positive thinking!)

Betsy

[bwlker]

Hello again Erin & Rick-

I am most happy and thrilled to report to you that I have been working for a day now with no crashes. That's the longest trouble-free work session I've had in a month.  WHEW!  Erin, I hope this is working for you, too.

Rick -  you are a prince among men. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you stepped up to the plate here and that you stuck with me through all my ups and downs. I was really about ready to throw in the towel, and I hated the idea of that.

But - for now - it seems I am back on track. I hope you have a divine weekend, wherever that may be!

Betsy

[Captiv8r]

Hi Betsy

I'm very pleased to hear you seem to be having better luck!

Let's cross our fingers and hope it hangs in there.

You have a good weekend too! Rick

Helpful and Handy Links Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Adobe Certified Captivate Training SorcerStone Blog Captivate eBooks

[bwlker]

Well,it's been three days now. I've made a project every day and I've tried to break the rules that I though were causing me trouble before. (Importing; "spawning" one project from another, etc.) Everything works! This is the most productive three days I've had all month.

Yaay!

Erin, I hope you are having success, too-

Betsy

[IHeartCaptivate]

Hi - so far I have not had a problem either and I have been trying to "break" it. Woohoo!! Thanks Rick and Betsy for all the support

[bwlker]

I'm sorry to say that the problem is back for me. I somehow think that I am generating this problem when I "spawn" projects too much. Because I have a theme going with my training, the first 5-7 slides are always variation on that theme. Rather than rebuild those slides each time, I use Save-As to start new projects. I then delete the slides I don't need and make small adjustments to the ones I keep. However, I think that somehow Captivate just doesn't seem to like this.

I have considered making the opening slides slightly more generic and then branching the separate topics from them, but size considerations have caused me to reject that approach.

Anyway, I am building each project from scratch and SO FAR that seems to help.

Erin - are you still having success?

Betsy

[IHeartCaptivate]

So far I'm good. Thought for you - why don't you try using 5-7 slides as a template? That may help with you the "spawning" problem.

Erin

[bwlker]

Hi Erin-

What a smart and logical suggestion. I'll do it today and I bet it will help. Glad you are still doing fine--

Betsy

[bwlker]

Hi Rick-

No dead horses anywhere I can see...! =;-)

I thought you made that suggestion in order for me to be absolutely positive I was working locally. I didn't realize it was a possible fix.

Like Erin, I will move my Captivate data folder out of the default one in Documents and place it in the root of C:\. Boy, if that's the answer HOW SIMPLE!!  (And how shamefully clueless the techs are...)

I, too, will report my results.

Betsy