Flash save error resulting in total loss of FLA

[Elz]

So, you try and save your Flash document, it says it can't do it because the file is read-only, or is open somewhere else or the destination is unavailable or something (when clearly none of these is true). Then you try and save it somewhere else and it won't let you. Meanwhile, it has deleted the original file when you tried to save over it.

So, now there's no document and i can't save the one I have open. What do I do? This isn't the first time this has happened, but it's never been such an issue before now because me and my colleague are about to lose a shedload of work. I think the network drive we work on must've have become temporarily unavailable and now Flash has gone mad. Any ideas? Pleaaaaassssse?

Before you ask, retirieving a server backup is not an option in this particular case.

Anyone else had this? This is such a huge problem surely it must've already been covered, but i've searched the forums and found nothing.

[CyanBlue]

Howdy and Welcome... :)

Were you working on the FLA file that is sitting in a remote/network directory rather than the local hard drive???

[Elz]

thanks for your reply! :)

yes indeed, a remote location. But now I can't save it locally either. It's bizzare, surely this office isn't the only place where this has happened?

[CyanBlue]

Well... That's one of the persisting issue with the Flash since the F5 era...
You work with the remote file, you end up with corruped file fairly often... This has been addressed many times and I don't think this issue was fixed well enough since I still see people yelling about this issue... It could have been the issue with your network on top of Flash's file handling...
As far as I can tell, there is no solution for the problem... and that's why you have to have backup stashed in regular basis...

[Elz]

wow, that's awful. I mean a connection issue is one thing, even losing the file... but not letting you save it somewhere else? how on Earth have they allowed that one to persist.

Ordinarily this isn't a problem for us for two reasons: 1) we have daily backups and 2) most things are done using external .as files, so in the event of this problem i just copy and paste the code into notepad, then paste it back later :) Any changes to the fla that are lost are minimal, if indeed there are any at all.

In this case however we're working on a cache box temporarily, it doesn't have backups (and wouldn't help anyway because most of this work has been done today), but also we're workin gon some old Flash 5 stuff where all the code is on the timeline.

The only hope is that because you can still export the swf, and because we were essentially done, we may not need to make any more changes and thus have no more use for the fla - this was a small, proof-of-concept project anyway. But there's a deadline tomorrow and if we do need to change these documents before then, then heaven help MacrAdobe, because I'll be banging down their door tomorrow.

[CyanBlue]

Well... You could always try to use Decompiler to see if it can generate the FLA out of the SWF... Check on the SoThink Decompiler if you need to use one...

[Elz]

mmm yes, but as far as I know decompilers can't recreate it exactly, right? At the very least some of the symbol names change...

Anyway, a far less troublesome (though less environmentally friendly) solution is to simply leave our computers on all night, and hope there isn't a power cut :)

[CyanBlue]

Nope, but it creates something that is somewhat close to the original... It is your call to tell how close the result is... ;)