Why icons become corrupted, no known reason. Theories are between files that grow to large and/or are edited so much with a lot of add/edit/deleted icons that internal 'pointers' just get out of whack.
You have applied the latest Authorware update, 7.02, right?
Primary way to avoid such issues: Use 'Save and Compact' often. When creating an Authorware project, any time I make a significant update to the code, I save-and-compact to a new file. A good habit to get into.
Working off a network location as opposed to a local drive also is suspected of contributing to corrupted icons and/or files. I've not had that problem in many, many years...but if it's something you experience, work locally and copy up to the fileshare when done for the day.
With the icon issue itself, copy around the icon, as you suggest - everything before it, copy, paste into a new file - everything after it, copy, paste into a new file, then create a new erase icon and fix up any broken linkages.
Save and Compact the file and use that new one as your new 'master'.
If Save and Compact, or Save As, doesn't work on your current master file due to these corruption issues, it's time to abandon that file before the problems get worse.
Oh, one trick I think is likely useless but some hace said it works - .zip the Authorware source file, move it to a new location, and unzip it, then test that source file. There are old claims this can help rebuild a file and nix the problem code. I doubt it, but can't hurt to try.
