File suddenly "truncated" after crashing when I saved work - but file not empty - help?

[Boggis]

Hi, from reading the forms this does seem to be a rare issue, and I don't know if the recent update is part of the problem or not - I save my work regularly but unfortunately not regularly in two locations, and after working on a large project for a few hours today suddenly Publisher crashed, and now my file won't open at all. And Windows 11 isn't showing me any previous versions to restore to. It's the dreaded truncated file message...but the file is still 846MB in size so can't be much shorter 😅

Can someone tell me if there's anything that can be done to retrieve this file, even in rolled back form? I'd really appreciate it. From what I read it doesn't look good, but also, the file isn't 0KB like it was for one person, and there doesn't seem to be any updates from staff trying to retrieve data on any of the queries since summer 2022, so I hope that something has improved since then and it isn't guaranteed to be lost forever.

Thanks in advance, even if it's bad news at least I've tried.

Chris

[Hangman]

Hi @Boggis and welcome to the forums,

I doubt it will make any difference but does a reboot (assuming you've not done so already) of your PC make any difference?

You could try creating a New Publisher Document with the same settings as your original document and then try the 'Add Pages from File' option in Publisher to see if you can rebuild your file...

Let us know how you get on...

[Boggis]

Would possibly help anyone who wants to play around if I attached the file wouldn't it. Sorry, it's months of work gone so more than a little stressful.

boggis album covers ongoing.afpub

[Boggis]

15 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Boggis and welcome to the forums,

I doubt it will make any difference but does a reboot (assuming you've not done so already) of your PC make any difference?

You could try creating a New Publisher Document with the same settings as your original document and then try the 'Add Pages from File' option in Publisher to see if you can rebuild your file...

Let us know how you get on...

I've tried both to no avail, if I try to add pages from file to a new doc it freezes and then I get the truncated message again. Thank you for the suggestions though, I hadn't even thought of the add from file option.

Other (smaller!) files are opening fine, so it's not the new version that's the issue. Just frustrating that I paused while working on it and had only actually added two images to the document before the "save" that ruined everything, the literal straw that broke the camel's back it seems!

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Save your own versions if the file is important to you. Do File/Save As/filename-yyyymmdd-hms. You can always clear them up later.

I would say that is not sufficient, though, as it does not confirm that the Save operated correctly. It's a good start, but I have suggested something like the following previously:

1. Start with some filename. I'll simply use "filename" here.
2. Save As filename-1. At that point, the file has been saved, but you are now working in filename-1 with no idea whether the Save completed properly.
3. So, Save as filename-2. Now you're working in filename-2, but you still don't know if the Save was really good.
4. Without doing any Close operation, Open filename-1. If it opens properly, the Save As worked. You can now close the tab with filename-2.
5. At an appropriate time after further changes, go back to step 2, but save filename-2 and then for step 4 save filename-3.

This sequence allows you to be sure that you always have a good backup.

[DWright]

I have not been able to recover your file, can you please go to the following location and upload the latest crash report so I can check if the cause was logged

%UserProfile%\.affinity\Publisher\2.0\CrashReports\reports\