Flash CS5 crashing when saving

[The Buke]

OK! What's the deal?

I have just purchased Adobe Master Collection CS5, all $4400 worth! To give the software it's credit, I formatted my HDD and clean installed Win 7 x64 OS. I then clean installed the entire CS5 suite! As I have to somewhat justify the purchase to my boss (who paid for the software), I have gone to continue doing some work, (not even trying out new features!!), I needed to complete a task, so I got onto it.

I opened up an existing file which was created using CS4, noticed a few bugs that arose when published out using CS5 (mainly around the way that fonts were referred as), fixed those, then all was going well. As we have all done, I got involved with the work, and worked for a long time without saving. I realised this and quickly went to save. The dialog box came up advising that it needed to change versions to CS5 (rather than the original CS4), so I cancelled out and did a file Save As.

I thought I would create a new file so that if anything went wrong, I would have a backup. BLOODY LUCKY I DID, as when I went to save as, Flash crashed, loosing all the work I did. I did manage to get a screenshot of some of my AS which was lucky, but when I looked into the folder where I tried to save, there was a completley useless *.fla of 1kb in size which was completely corrupted and couldn't open up.

Resigned to the fact that I lost all my work (nothing new - as we all know it happens every now and then), I thought I would open up Flash, and the very first task would be to save it as CS5 format. Low and behold, flash crashes again, again leaving a corrupted file in it's place. For $4400, you would think you could at least save the work you have done!!

In other tests, it seems it can save new files, and some simple animations created in CS4, but what the hell do I do with all the existing work that I have spent the last year developing? Can someone please help me, as I really cannot work until this issue is resolved.

HELP!

Duncan Buchanan

[_Q-EyonOS]

Hi XanaRaquel,

We understand your frustration and we are actively working to improve Flash. In Flash CS5.5, we have implemented a feature called auto-recovery. This feature takes snapshots of your file as you work and it is on by default. The interval between snapshots is set by default to 10 min and it is located in the Preferences dialog. Do you see a RECOVER-"your file name" next to your document? This file should also automatically open when you relaunch Flash after you crashed.

Can you please let us know what you did before you saved the file in Flash CS5.5 and experienced the crash? The more detail you can provide the better for us to troubleshoot this issue and investigate a fix. With the latest update, were you able to open your corrupted file and retrieve your library asset?

Thanks,

Quynh

Flash Authoring, QE

[XanaRaquel]

*Q, thank you for the reply.

I just checked the preferences and the auto-recovery is checked and set to 10 minutes, however I never saw a RECOVER-*filename* been created. Is it supposed to be created in the same folder has the original project? Because I never saw such a thing there, on this or other projects I did. So I’m guessing it’s not working or something is weird here. I tried just now to uncheck and check again to see if it helps, waited the 10 minutes but no recover file was created.

It didn't really crash. It just completely froze. This is what I did:

Before going to bed, I saved the project and pushed crtl+enter to see how the project was going.  The “Exporting SWF movie” dialog appears but the progress bar wouldn’t move at all. Even after 5 minutes. So I forcefully closed Flash and went to bed. The next day when I open the project I get the “Could not load scene into memory. Your document may be damaged." message. It probably got corrupted during the last save I did because as far as I know, just testing the movie doesn’t affect the fla file, right? Oh and the exporting created a SWF file with only 53 bytes in size. Can’t read it with notepad, only a part where it says “Scene 2”, which is weird since the project only had one scene.

I don’t know when the latest update came out but last time I updated was a week ago. But like I said, I opened the fla like a zip file and the DOMDocument.xml is waaaaay incomplete. It only has information about 1/4 of what was in the library and nothing else. Also, that’s what it shows when I open it in Flash. All the other xml and other files seem to be ok.

Also, I notice Flash gets more instable with the save thing the more time it’s working. What I mean is when I open a project, add a few things, save it, everything works as it should. But, let’s say, after 1 hour without closing Flash, if I try to save again sometimes I get message saying it couldn’t save and to try “save as” in a different location. Rarely it simply just crashes or freezes completely in the "save as" dialog. Same thing happens with auto-save. At the beginning works fine but later on I see that it’s trying to auto-save but an error pops-up saying it couldn’t save. This doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes I have Flash opened for 3 or more hours and no problems at all.

I hope this helps in any way to fix this really awful problem.

And now… to start the project from the beginning 😞

PS EDIT: After more testing it seems that auto-recovery only works if the auto-save is turned off. This is really weird and explains why I never saw an auto-recovery file before: because I always had auto-save on in all my projects. It should be possible to have them both on at the same time!

[_Q-EyonOS]

The RECOVER file is  placed in the same directory as the document you are working on. The way this feature work is to take a snapshot of the file after changes is made at the specified time (10 min by default).

A RECOVER file will not be available in the following scenario:

- If the file is not dirty (no asterisk mark next to the file name) then auto-recover will not take place because nothing has been changed.

- You save, close, or crash before the specified time to take the snapshot.

- Your autosave time is less than or equal to your auto-recover time.

- The snapshot is deleted once you close the document normally.

If you want to test this feature, do this:

- Make sure autorecover is checked in the preferences panel. You can change the 10 min to 1 min so you don't have to wait so long.

- Make sure your autosave is off or the time is greater than the auto-recover time.

- Open an exisiting document. If are using a new document, save it.

- Make some changes to the file but don't save it.

- When the auto-recover time come, a snapshot of the fla appears in the same directory as your document location. If you crashed, then this snapshot will automatically open when you relaunch Flash.

To check and see if you have the latest update, open the Flash about box (Help > About Adobe Flash Professional). With the latest update  you should see version 11.5.1.349. This update was released in September.

I believe the fla is already corrupted after your last save; however, you won't notice this until you reparse the document by closing and reopening it. Because of this in version 349, we also put in a check to prompt user to resave the document if  something happened while saving, like if the DOMDoc is truncated. We also added the ability to open corrupted files to retrieve assets from the library.

When recreating your document, make sure you save backup copies. It is also important to close and reopen your document after you save to make sure your back up is good.

[mwasnewskyMDSNYC]

I am having this same problem and I cannot find a solution anywhere online!

I am using Windows 7 Pro and Flash CS5.5

The file worked perfect, I opened it, changed the alpha value of a graphic, and when I went to save, it crashed! It also crashes if I try to export an .swf.

I have tried accessing/saving the file on a network, on my desktop, and on another computer running Windows XP and Flash CS5.5. I have tried saving as CS5 and CS4. I have tried using Windows 7's "run as administrator" option. Nothing is working! I even have older versions of the file (I back up to a flash drive a few times a week at different points in my progress) and all of them are having the same issue!

PLEASE can we find a solution to this? This file is essential to updating my entire website and without it I will never be able to update it!

[_Q-EyonOS]

Hi mwasnewskyMDSNYC,

Please zip up your file, change .zip extension to .zzz, and email the attachment to my attention at FlashAuthBetaBugs@adobe.com.  I'll take a look to see why your file cannot be updated. Please also include the exact steps on how I can replicate the crash.

By the way, did you install our latest update for Flash CS5.5?

Thanks,

Quynh

Flash Authoring, QE

[mwasnewskyMDSNYC]

Thank you Quynh! I sent the file.

[_Q-EyonOS]

A few of your assets in the library might be corrupted. I sent a reply to you ealier with instructions on which assets to delete.

Let me know if you still can't update your file.

Thanks,

Q

[gabrielv70]

Q,

Could you please show how you determine corrupted library assets?

I'm pretty sure I have them. And it would be good to be able to troubleshoot this.

Thanks!

Gabriel

[_Q-EyonOS]

Hi Gabriel,

There are several things you can try.

If your document can be opened:

1. Open your corrupted file in Flash.
2. Create a new fla document in Flash.
3. Copy and Paste assets from the library of your corrupted file to the new fla library in small chunks and save, close, and reopen the .fla after each paste. Once you run into issue like crash or can't save anymore then you know the assets you copied last might be corrupted.

If your document cannot be opened:

1. In Flash, create a new document and save as uncompressed (.xfl) format.

2. Use Window Explorer or the Finder to locate your corrupted file.

3. Change the extension of your corrupted document from .fla to .zip.

4. Unzip the file. The unzip version of your corrupted file should have the same structure as the new uncompressed file you saved in step 1.

5. Use Window Explorer or the Finder to locate your new uncompressed file that you saved in step 1.

6. Copy and Paste DOMDocument.xml file from the corrupted file to your new uncompressed file (replace the current copy there).

7. Open the good uncompressed document in Flash. Make sure you can open it then close it.

8. Now go back to the Window Explorer or Finder and browse to the LIBRARY folder inside your corrupted file.

9. Copy and Paste a small chunks of files from the LIBRARY folder of the corrupted folder to the new uncompressed LIBRARY folder.

10. Open the good uncompressed document in Flash. Make sure you can open it then close it.

11. Repeat step 9 & 7 until you can't open the new uncompressed file anymore. Once you run into issue like crash or can't open then you know the assets you copied last might be corrupted.

If you have the steps on how to corrupt a library assets, please forward it to my attention at FlashAuthBetaBugs@adobe.com. The more details we have the better.

Hope this helps,

Q

[carl_g]

Thanks for this Q - it didn't help, but it was informative.

It's really bad though, I've just lost a days work - Flash stopped working in the middle of an operation (I was just moving a graphic around) and when I opened the file after restarting all I got was 'unexpected file format.' The XML files seem to be the most corrupted, I do get a message about a graphic also being corrupted from winRAR but if it is then it was corrupted in the crash, I'd used it succesfully before.

This is really unnacceptable - Adobe need to fix this as a matter of urgency. One way would to be to have an incremental autosave option - at least you could roll back a couple of versions.

[miwoj]

THIS STILL HAPPENS

It's like 5th time i've lost hours of my work because Flash crashed at save!

THIS IS BULLSHlT ADOBE! FIX THIS!

[flexzionist]

Dude, Adobe do not care..