I thought I had lost all my work...

**kinetica** · 05 May 2009, 09:40 PM

Hello

I have just encountered a weird and scary (but finally surmountable) problem.

I have a XAR file which I have been working on. It is 6585Kb in size no doubt due to the very detailed bitmap trace image it contains. Yesterday, as usual, I saved it and took a backup of it because it is very important.

Today I tried to open the document and I got the attached error message. I rebooted Windows and tried again. In a slight panic I tried to open the backup and got the same error message. Now I was even more worried. I have done a lot of work on this file.

Finally I tried the following, which worked. I opened a new, blank document and dragged and dropped my 6Mg file onto it. I seem to recall that this worked once although I cannot remember when, how or why. To my great surprise and relief, it worked. The document opened into the new, blank file and, having inspected it thoroughly, no data appeared broken, lost or corrupted. I saved the file, overwriting the original, and shut down Xara and then reopened the document by clicking on it in windows explorer and it opened fine.

How can you explain this odd behaviour? The original file was clearly corrupted, yet it dragged and dropped into a new blank document.

I cannot post the file here because the project is subject to a NDC.

**Burpee** · 05 May 2009, 09:49 PM

Congratulations for finding a solution and not losing any information. I save my files as multiple names. With a file that big I wouldn't trust just one save. I find that large files in almost any program will cause you trouble.

I had a Bryce file, quite large, that I saved and when I went to open it again, there was nothing there, even though it said the mb were still there. I had to open a previous save and redo a bit of the work.

**Shaman** · 05 May 2009, 11:05 PM

Thank you kinetica!
You have my eternal gratitude, for at least the next day or so.

Have had a couple of those in the last two months and it's frustrating. Tried it on one and it not only opened, but was able to save as a different name, close and open that up without difficulty.
Even saving multiple iterations doesn't always work if you forget to save one for a while when you get on a roll. Save early, save often is a very good motto, though.
Scott

**Egg Bramhill** · 05 May 2009, 11:27 PM

I recommend to install XaReg from HERE. Amongst other goodies it can create a .bak file every time you save your xar. So you end up with a potted history of your saves should things go t**s-up.
Live effects are good candidates for creating these errors as well and it's often worth trying to open the file in an earlier version which doesn't have that plug-in.

**jvila** · 06 May 2009, 12:01 AM

Thank you for the xreg, I have suffered that many times, above all when I use clipview, now I use ctrl 3 intead of it.
Un abrazo y gracias

**jvila** · 06 May 2009, 12:05 AM

You know I can't download the xreg, the link doesn´t appear.

**jvila** · 06 May 2009, 12:22 AM

Hello,
I thought this things (errors) only happend to me, seeing that simptoms on other's work I'm wonder what it is doing xara to resolve them, does anybody something about fixes to resolve them?.
Un abrazo

**amoore** · 06 May 2009, 12:22 AM

I've had a bunch of those 4331 errors over the last 6 months. Usually, once it happens to a file, I can no longer open that file in X4. However, it'll work just fine in v3.24, so I've reclaimed those files by working on them in the older version.

Xara tech support thought the problem might be related to having the option "Give new object most recent attributes" turned on. That does seem to make a difference in that I haven't had a 4331 error since I turned it off. 'Course, that means a lot of extra steps since I have to keep reapplying attributes.

Bad news is that just turning off the option will not enable you to open the file in x4. Good news is that it looks like saving the file in 3.24 may enable you to work on it again in x4 with that option turned off. Saving it in a new file as kinetica did might also do the trick.

I'll be very grateful when Xara & Co get this one fixed.