Digital Workshop

I worked for two days on an opus xe publication and today I cannot open it any longer.

When I try to open the imp file nothing happens. It ist not loaded into opus. The only thing opus does is to create a autosave file everytime I try to open the imp file. Unfortunately I cannot open the autosave file too.

Other imp files can be opened without problems. There was no special problem with this special file. I published it a few minutes before I closed it yesterday without any problems.

Is this a known problem with opus files? Is there a solution to get my work back?

Help is very appreciated.


T.

Unless you disabled it, OPUS also creates a file with your Pub's name then "Backup.imp". Take a look in your directory for such a file.

Projects become more valuable everytime you add to them, therefore I always do this:

Use the OPEN icon, highlight your current IMP file, RIGHT mouse click and use WinZIP to save a ZIPPED copy.

OPUS 5.5 also has a "Backup" procedure. Look under FILE, and you'll see it. It will also save your resources.

I have an additional backup for every project. I save duplicate directories on my 200GB HD external drive also.

Thanks for your hint. I actually found such a backup file which was "only" 3 hours older than the saved imp file. Unfortunately this means 3 hours of work lost.

I wonder what can be the reason for this opus behaviour and how to avoid it. I found that other users had had similar probs before.

@ DW Team: Please put this issue on the to do list for opus 6.

@ demofred: Thanks again for your help.


T.

From experience, I find it's a very good idea to manually backup. Everytime I finish something that I would hate to do again, I just click Save or Ctrl+S. On some sessions, I might save every 5 minutes, and I might manually backup the files, including resources.

That might take a little time, but nowhere near as must as re-working a couple of hours!

Call me paranoid if you must, but guess who sleeps peacefully

I agree 100% and I will do so in the future. But for all that there must be a reason for this kind of bug. I never had similar probs with e.g. Microsoft Word or other applications.

A.

IMHO, I'd like to suggest that Opus might be a little more complex than some of the MS top end products I've used.

While it is little consolation, I've found that when I've encountered probles such as you've mentioned in this thread, the root fault has almost always be something that I have done, perhaps ill-advisedly or because I haven't ensured that I've installed the latest drivers for graphics and sound cards, and making sure that my DivX and DirectX files are the latest.

BTW, did you know that the last several releases of DirectX (I think it was the one) have all carried the same version number, but have had different build numbers? I only discovered that last week when experiencing some strange issues. I updated everything except DirectX, but the problem persisted until I downloaded the Feb 2006 file from MS.

You are right but nothing of these has something to do with this case. I worked on the file, I saved reopened and published it several times without probs yesterday. I did not install anything neither did I change my hardware or something else. I started the very same file on the very same machine this morning an could not open it.

T.

This indicates that you might possibly have a memory issue with your computer. Opus loads up the memory and you might have a glitch in the top end that rarily gets used in normal 'play'. Download a memory checker and run it for a couple of hours or over-night. One I use is called memtest86.

Good point Evereddie about memory - faulty memory can cause all kinds of problems.

Taratonga, I've lost work with Ms Word, Excell and PowerPoint in the past. As a matter of working process, I always save every ten minutes or so.

I'm also wondering if you might ahve a hard disk problem. If your computer saved your file across a bad sector area on your hard drive, then this could explain the problems you are having also.

If you are running XP, it might pay to do a hard disk check and defrag, but before doing so, I would burn important files to either a dvd or cd first.

I'm sorry you have this problem Taratonga and I fully empathise and understand the sheer frustration and possibly anger you must be feeling right now.

Cheers

Graham

Since you report you do have a Backup.imp file, I'm now confused about your statement that you had done several "Save" functions. OPUS creates a Backup.imp everytime you click "Save." So how can your Backup.imp be three hours before your problem occurred?

Is it possible you did a "Save As" along the way (maybe accidentlally), and that your project is actually still on your HD, only under a different name?

Use Windows Explorer and run a Search for ".imp" on your entire computer/network including all HDs, then sort them in reverse time order. I'm hoping you'll find an IMP file which contains all your hard work.