Afpub file with no content -> 1,06gb. Publisher corrupted!?

[Leaving-Adobe]

Hi!
I was just about to write below this post. Now the situation is so absurd that I better opened up a new thread: My Publisher made a usual 34mb file become 855mb after opening and saving it. The second time saving made it 1,07gb. Deleting the elements and pages took some 200/300 mb,then it rose again. Attached you find the "end": A blank document weighing 1,06gb. Wow.

Other files I created or re-opened/saved behave normally.

Any idea what that is?
How can I "save" the original 34mb file?!

Thanks and all the best

Sebastian

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Leaving-Adobe
privacy issues

[MikeTO]

Hi, which version of Publisher are you using (1.10.6? 2.0.4?) and which operating system? If you're on Mac, are you using an M1 or M2?

There's a known issue with 1.10.6 on an M1/M2 which causes files to bloat like this. You can work around it temporarily by toggling all images in the Resource Manager from linked to embedded and then back to linked. I've had a file reach 1GB but upon doing this it reversed to its usual 8MB.

If you're not using an M1/M2 or you're using version 2 then it's likely a different issue.

Cheers

[Leaving-Adobe]

Hey @MikeTO!
1.10.6 on M1

But if there is NO image at all in the file?!

[MikeTO]

1 minute ago, Leaving-Adobe said:

Hey @MikeTO!
1.10.6 on M1

But if there is NO image at all in the file?!

Did you use Save or Save As? Save does incremental saves until it reaches a certain threshold, so the file will naturally grow and grow until that point - I don't recall what the threshold is but apps typically use something like 30% or so. If you deleted all the resources you should be past that threshold but with this bug it might not "know" that so I recommend using Save As which saves in the minimum space possible.

[Leaving-Adobe]

both! saving as -> 885mb, save -> 1,06gb

[Leaving-Adobe]

cool, thanks. But: What is "V2"?? And the history has been the same in the 34mb-Version, so that is not the point

[Leaving-Adobe]

you mean I have to buy a new version in order to be able to work with my existing licence on that file?

[Leaving-Adobe]

ah thanks! And so did I! Now it has 700mb - still too much. Then I tried @miketo's Tipp from his first post - that worked. So there must have been an image in my "empty" file, too.
Well, strange but solved!

Thanks you two!

[thomaso]

I needed three trials to get this .afpub opened. The first two times it showed a message dialog like

"Access to the file was lost while performing the initial loading.
The document must be closed now."

I wonder what was causing this, all is saved on 1 internal SSD, no external disk or cloud in use.

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

There's a known issue with 1.10.6 on an M1/M2 which causes files to bloat like this.

14 minutes ago, Leaving-Adobe said:

Now it has 700mb - still too much. Then I tried @miketo's Tipp from his first post - that worked.

Interesting, same result to me with this .afpub on my non-M1/M2 mac. Although I never experienced this (often reported) file size increase before, now it is maintained with this document and I can not fix it with a simple Save As.

If I go fully back in the document's history and Save As it results in 986 MB, although the page content would not require this. This seems to mean that this bug not only happens on a specific hardware but, once it happened, also continues on a different mac.

Also, a new document + the option "Add from file…" results in 986 MB if saved, which seems to indicate the data rubbish gets added, too.