"File does not exist?" and "File cannot be found?"

[Projectus]

Hi,

I'm working in FM 9 and FM 11.

I have a folder for a book and for all its .fm children.

When I open the book, many .fm files in the book pane ae marked with a ?, and trying to open them produces the error "File named Whatever.fm does not exist."

Does anyone know why this happens, and how to fix it?

A possible clue: I frequently need to download a zip file of the whole book and its components from a document management tool, and then unzip locally.

Thanks much.

[Bob_Niland]

What is the directory relationship of the .book and .fm files before zipping?

... and then after unzipping?

If on different paths, were they at least on the same logical drive prior to zipping?

[Projectus]

Hi, thanks for the response.
The files are usually zipped locally on someone else's PC, then probably moved to a network, then uploaded to Document Control, then downloaded and unzipped locally at a different location by a different user.

The only way I'm able to fix it, is to open each .fm file individually, re-save over the original "unfound" .fm file, then re-build the book using the freshly saved .fm files. It works, but it's clumsy and, well, I hate it.

[Bob_Niland]

For more on the basic issue, see:

Relative file pathnames in FM book files

This, by the way, is not a bug.

It's an intractable consequence of the dissonance between Unix-like (common root) and DOS-like (multiple root / logical drive) file systems.

Newer versions of Frame may have an "archive" capability to save out a complete book with restructured fs hierarchy. Aftermarket products exist for older versions. We wrote our own archive script for translation export, that even gathers the imports.

Of course, when you are the recipient of some random .book, archiving was almost never done by the exporter .