Damaged file while workind in Publisher V2 - no further acess possible - file seems to be damaged

[farin.weinert]

Dear affinity-Team, 

while working on a specific file in Publisher V2 the message appeared that the file seems to be damaged and needs to be closed immediately. Since closing the file it has not been possible to open the File. Whether in Publisher V2 or Designer V2. While trying to open the file an error message occors: "file seems to be damaged".

Wich possibilities are there to recover the file? Do you have any mesures to recover it? What needs to be done to prevent this error in future?
Please Help. 

Sure I will send the file over to you if there is any possibility of recreating it.
Thanks in advance,

Farin

[Hangman]

Hi @farin.weinert,

I very much suspect your file is corrupted and likely unrecoverable, though someone at Serif may wish to take a look at it to see if they can recover the file for you...

If you're happy to upload your file to the forum others can also take a look to see if they can recover the file for you or you can request a Private Dropbox link allowing you to upload the file directly to the Serif Team if it's a confidential client file...

If creating a blank Publisher file using the same document settings, does using Document > Add Pages from File... throw up the same error message?

Could you confirm whether the file in question and any associated linked graphics are located on your internal Hard Drive, an External or NAS drive or in the Cloud?

[Dan C]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums @farin.weinert,

We’re sorry to hear that your Affinity document is no longer opening for you. Please upload the file to us using the below link and we’ll take a further look at the file to see if we can recover any of its contents.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/r6mvTSj66i9X0SJEnfFo

We would obviously also like some additional information to see if we can work out the cause of the problem and stop it happening in future. To assist this process, as well as uploading your file, please can you also tell us the following:

1. Which Operating System (and version) are you using?
2. Which version of Affinity did the file last get saved in?
3. What drive type was the file last saved to?
   Local disk
   USB disk/Flash disk
   Google Drive folder
   OneDrive folder
   iCloud folder
   Dropbox folder
   Network location
   Other (please specify)
    
4. Any other information you think would help us try to find the problem?

We suggest that you check to see if you have any backups of the document available in case we’re unable to recover the file.

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know. Many thanks in advance!

[farin.weinert]

Hey Dan, 

the damaged file is uploaded, thanks for your effort in advance. 
Following your requested information: 
1. OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2

2. Affinity Version:  Affinity Publisher V2 Version 2.3.1

3. File was last saved on a local disk within a synchronised folder with Synology Drive. Sadly there is no older version of the file available on drive.

4. The error occurs short after or directly after saving (I'm not 100% sure)

Don't hesitate to ask for further information, 
kind regards,

Farin

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing that for me!

I've attempted to recover this document using the tools available to me, however unfortunately thus far I've been unable.

Inspecting the file in a HEX editor shows me that a significant 'chunk' of the file has been 0'd, indicating the data has been lost -

Usually once a file has lost this data, it cannot be recovered - however I will be logging the file with our developers to see if they are more fruitful with the additional tools available to them.

Our sincerest apologies for any inconveniences caused due to this.

56 minutes ago, farin.weinert said:

Sadly there is no older version of the file available on drive.

One thing we can try is to recover the document using the Autosave files which may still be present on your system.

To find these, please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK. The correct string will depend on the use of MSIX or EXE Affinity V2 installers on your system:

MSIX:

%USERPROFILE%\.affinity\Designer\2.0\autosave

%USERPROFILE%\.affinity\Publisher\2.0\autosave

EXE:

%AppData%\Affinity\Designer\2.0\autosave

%AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\2.0\autosave

Within these folders, you should hopefully see a few '.autosave' files. Please copy these files from this folder and paste them elsewhere (such as to your Desktop or Documents folder).

Now, rename the file's format to .afdesign and try opening these documents in Designer directly.

Hopefully one of these .autosave files will be a recent version of this document, which you can then backup and continue working on.

Please do let me know how you get on here

[farin.weinert]

Thanks for your effort. That is sad and means a lot auf reproductive work to me. There is no matching autosave file. I'hv tried to import the pages to a new document, but with same result "File seems to be damaged".