Files that were working fine a few days ago now crashing Publisher on opening

[Adam_J]

Hi Affinity forums,

I last worked on a file a few days ago, and don't remember any issues with opening, working in or saving it at the time. But now, when I try and open it again, Publisher crashes before the file is open.  I worked on it over a number of days, and saved successive versions of the file as I went, and the same thing happens with the previous version as well, but not the very first version.  Any ideas on what might cause this and/or how to get around it?  I've been working in Publisher since then on other files and they open without crashing.

I exported pdfs of my project as I went, including one of the last version of the file, so I could probably re-create it by opening the first version and then modifying it until it matches the pdf, but I'd rather avoid that if possible, as it would be quite a bit of work! 

Apologies if this is the wrong forum, and thanks in advance for any advice you can provide. 

Adam 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Adam_J
Removed a (PS) about signing into the forum

[MikeTO]

20 minutes ago, Adam_J said:

I last worked on a file a few days ago, and don't remember any issues with opening, working in or saving it at the time. But now, when I try and open it again, Publisher crashes before the file is open.  I worked on it over a number of days, and saved successive versions of the file as I went, and the same thing happens with the previous version as well, but not the very first version.  Any ideas on what might cause this and/or how to get around it?  I've been working in Publisher since then on other files and they open without crashing.

I exported pdfs of my project as I went, including one of the last version of the file, so I could probably re-create it by opening the first version and then modifying it until it matches the pdf, but I'd rather avoid that if possible, as it would be quite a bit of work! 

Hi and welcome to the forums. Serif may want to see a crash report so you should upload one of those. If it's possible to share the document publicly, that would be helpful.

If the file has linked resources (images or documents that are linked, not embedded), try renaming the folder(s) containing the resources and opening the file without them available. Do not accept the opportunity to re-link when opening the file. If the problem is with a linked resource this would enable opening the document and then you could figure out which resources is causing the problem. Typically, you could delete each resource one by one in this scenario and re-place it so solve the problem.

If there are no linked resources, another option to try is creating a new document of the same size and then choosing Document > Add Pages from File. Sometimes you can add some or all the pages from a document that can't be opened into a blank document.

Good luck!

[Adam_J]

Hi MikeTO, 

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I did have a lot of linked resources, but changing the folder name didn't have any effect. However I tried your second idea of creating a new document and then adding the pages from the broken file, and it worked perfectly. I've saved that new version of the document, and it saves, opens and closes without problems. How bizarre! 

Thanks again.