No first paragraph found - strange error situation

[K.Daube]

Dear all,

Just to tell what's all possible in FrameMaker (15.0.5.838):

I wanted to use my ETBdocNav to get t he navigation panel - but for a particular file it reported that there are no heading paragraphs in the document. Of course there are plenty of those visible...

With the following script

#target framemaker
main ();
function main () {
var oDoc    = app.ActiveDoc;
$.writeln (oDoc.ObjectValid());
var oFlow   = oDoc.MainFlowInDoc;
$.writeln (oFlow.ObjectValid());
var oTframe = oFlow.FirstTextFrameInFlow;
$.writeln (oTframe.ObjectValid());
var oPgf    = oTframe.FirstPgf;
$.writeln (oPgf.ObjectValid());
}

only oDoc is valid, all other objects are reported invalid.

• A MIF wash did not help
• Saving as very old did not help
• Jumping in the miniTOC to the nearly last heading showed me a page with missing 3-D object and missing Flash object - then FM quit with dump.
• For the reconstruction starting with the template I needed to restore an older version to get these two 'strange' objects.
• Then I copied page by page into the template, checking after each...
• Finally - since this is a book file - I needed to rebuild the TOC and Index.

The strange thing is: This damaged file existed since a while, just a few weeks ago I updated it, TOC and index did not fail, PDF creation worked also - so i did not notice this strange damaged object structure until ETBdocNav struggled.

How could FM 'live' with this non-existent first paragraph  oDoc.MainFlowInDoc.FirstTextFrameInFlow.FirstPgf ?

[Klaus Göbel]

Hi Klaus,

could you send me this file for further investigations?

It made me curious.

[K.Daube]

Have sent it with private mail to You, Klaus - the ZIP is about 4Meg including all insets (thanks to Rick's ArchiveES) and a pdf which was successfully created from the file.

[Klaus Göbel]

(for other users):

As I send you per email, your pagelayout is corrupt.

[frameexpert · Accepted solution]

The script likely failed at MainFlowInDoc. It is possible to have a FrameMaker document with a Flow A on the body pages, but it not be the MainFlowInDoc. This will sometimes happen with disconnected text frames or multiple master page named flows.