What is the best way to use recovery files

[FMdancer]

I am working in FM 11 and have crashed FM a few times. What is the best way to use the recovery files and save them as the normal file? Then should I filter an explorer window for "recovery" so FM won't keep asking me if I want to use older recovery files? Thanks for your help.

[Bob_Niland]

> What is the best way to use the recovery files ...

Use a .recover file to extract only the new/changed content that would otherwise be lost if you were instead to open the .auto (if any), or .backup files.

> ... and save them as the normal file?

Don't. If the document crashed because of an internal data structure problem, the .recover file (although actually a MIF) is apt to contain that problem.

Before doing anything, preserve the debris. Copy the .backup and .auto files in particular, because as soon as you open the main .fm file, it's going to overwrite that .backup, and then the .auto at the next auto-save interval. You can dispose of any zero-length files or files with temporary names (which result from the crash itself crashing).

I typically:

1. preserve a snapshot of the debris
2. open the original file, and if it won't, the .backup
3. open the .recover, .auto or .backup (whichever seems the most useful candidate as a sourcing file)
4. copy in the changes from the .recover, .auto or .backup to the working copy
5. save the working copy as the original.fm, close the sourcing file
6. do a MIF wash on the new original.fm
7. clean up the debris in preparation for the next crash

[FMdancer]

Sounds good. Thanks. What is a MIF wash?

[Bob_Niland · Accepted solution]

> What is a MIF wash?

1. Save all the component .fm files to .mif as format MIF.
   Save the .book as .book.mif in format MIF.
2. Exit FM.
   Restart FM.
3. Open the component .mifs. Save as .fm, replacing old (presumably backed-up .fm files).
4. Open the .book.mif, re-save as .book.
   Note: do not open the .book.mif first and then attempt to open component files, or you will be opening the pre-MIF binaries.

FM11 and 12 may have a free add-on provided that does this as a single operation.

MIF wash creates new .book and .fm files that have syntactically correct data structures (and can have incorrect content missing). They are less likely to crash, but may yet have issues.

[FMdancer]

Thanks.

[FMdancer]

What is the free FM 11 add-on the does the MIF wash? I don't see it in my menus. I just did the MIF wash manually and it is time consuming, but hopefully it will help with what is now daily FM crashes.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

See Arnis’s post #11 in this thread - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1386795

[FMdancer]

Thanks Jeff. The post you mentioned had great info.

[FMdancer]

I installed the DLL to my FM 11 that allows me to do a MIF Wash through Book Utilities > Book MIF Wash. I found a set of MIF files in my directory. Does this mean I still need to open the MIF files and MIF book, then save as FM?

[Bob_Niland]

> Does this mean I still need to open the MIF files and MIF book, then save as FM?

Not having anything later than FM9 to test, I'm not sure, but here are two things to look at:

1. What's the timestamp on the MIF files vs. the FM files?
   If the MIFs are older, chances are the add-on did a save-as-binary after creating the MIFs.
2. What's open to Frame after running the wash?
   If nothing, the file timestamps tell the tale.

One thing I suspect the add-on MIFwasher does not do is exit and restart Frame after saving the MIFs but before re-opening the MIFFs to re-save as binary .FM's.

Adding this step when doing it by hand ensures that any corruption in FM's internal data structures won't cause even more damage to the documents.

[FMdancer]

both MIF and FM files have the same date time on the files. MIF files are approx. double the size.

[Bob_Niland]

> ... both MIF and FM files have the same date time on the files.

They don't, but you might need to have resolution to or below the second on the timestamp to see the difference.

If your file browser is only showing you to the minute, right click for Properties. Mr.Bill, alas may decline to show anything below seconds.

You can try washing a much larger file, which will take longer to save, and might have timestamps some seconds apart.

> MIF files are approx. double the size.

MIF is [mostly] human-readable markup. FM binary files are not and are more compact. MIF is always larger, often a lot more than 2x larger.

.recover files are actually MIF, btw.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Search the FM forum – there’s a number of good posts on MIF washing