Re: FM7 crashes when trying to open a file

["Lynne A. Price" <lprice@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:59 AM 9/21/2004, Bill Marcotte wrote:
> I have a file that crashes FrameMaker when we try to open it.
> The file uses structure and conditional text and I'm presuming that is the
> reason this is happening. I *can* open the file if I turn off structure, but
> then I lose the structure. I count my blessings as at least I can get my
> content back, but now I'm in fear of this happening again.
>
> I've tried the file on several systems and the same things happens. Other
> files that have cross-references to this file also crash when opened,
> presumably because they are trying to check the cross-reference to the bad
> file. (They open fine if I rename the bad file and FM reports unresolved
> xrefs.)

Bill,
  Sounds like you have a corrupt file. FM crashes when you open files that 
cross-reference the corrupt file because it is trying to open the corrupt 
file to update the cross-references.
  If you were able to open the structured document, I'd recommend saving 
it to MIF and reopening it, but since you can't open it, that 
recommendation is useless.
  Do you have a backup version of the file? If so, you might want to use 
File > Utilities > Compare Documents to compare it to the unstructured 
current version and edit in recent changes. That approach might be easier 
than adding structure back to the current version.
  It's hard to say how the file became corrupted. I have seen situations 
in which a condition tag winds up applied to one of an element's boundaries 
but not the other. Hiding that condition will therefore yield a 
poorly-formed FM structure; since FM expects every element to have both 
boundaries, crashes can result. However, I have not seen this problem in FM 
7.x. In previous versions, I could avoid it by always editing conditional 
structured documents with all conditions showing.
        --Lynne



Lynne A. Price
Text Structure Consulting, Inc.
Specializing in structured FrameMaker consulting, application development, 
and training
lprice@xxxxxxxxxxxx            http://www.txstruct.com
voice/fax: (510) 583-1505      cell phone: (510) 421-2284 



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