100's of .fla file will will not open anymore... HELP! "An error occurred opening file..."

[marcs61886613]

I have hundreds of .fla files containg projects from previous versions of Animate/ Flash that no longer will open. I get an error message that the file(s) cannot be opened. I can understand perhaps 1 or 2 files being corrupt or damaged but not hundreds. I have even tried backup of the files for which I keep 2 sets. My guess is that at some point some .fla file were not compatible with new program updates. My question is, Is there a way to get access to an older version of Animate/flash so that I may open these files and retrieve my work? Any help would be appreciated. 

The message I get is "An error occurred opening file..."

[Aiden27308675oqlc]

I tried download winrar, but I have a mac.  I guess winrar doesn't work on a Mac. Any other tool that will also fix the file?

[kglad]

you can look for any mac tool that can repair rar or zip files.  i would google it.

[kglad]

actually, if you upload your fla to a file server, and post a link, i'll work on it for you.

[Aiden27308675oqlc]

Oh I was hoping you might say that. I have the file on my google drive.  Can we use that? Or email me privately - <removed-kglad>

[kglad]

these are public forums. don't post your email here.

click my icon and send me a private message (link is towards the top right on profile page) with a link to the fla on your google drive or if you have to share it with my email, let me know in a private message.

[Aiden27308675oqlc]

Ok.  I sent you a private message.  Thank you.

[kglad]

answered

[kglad]

unfortunately, winrar could not remove all the errors.

unraring is successful but nothing useful is retained:

[Aiden27308675oqlc]

Thank you very much for trying.  Really appreciated.

[kglad]

you're welcome.

and in the future, don't ever let this happen again.  save your fla's periodically with increasing version number appended.  occassionally close and reopen the latest version to confirm it's not corrupt.

eg, save sb.fla as sb_v000.fla, sb_v001.fla, sb_v002.fla etc.  once your close and reopen a version, all previous versions can be deleted.

[marcs61886613]

I finally found that the solution to opening the files that I could not open was to download an older version of adobe animate. I believe it was the 2020 version that allowed me then to open those files that were not able to be open using the current version. You may have to go back and use an older version, depending upon when those files were created. Hopefully this helps.