Flash CS5 Crash corrupted files. How can I get my xml library assets back into a new FLA?

flash flash-cs5 file-recovery
discorax picture discorax · Dec 15, 2010 · Viewed 11.1k times · Source

I started using Flash CS5 (and it sucks btw, but that's not my issue today). I spent many hours working on a .FLA file. Saving as I went and at one point Flash CS5 crashed during the save. The .fla file is now corrupt. The new .fla format is essentially a .zip file. So I was able to change the file name to *.zip and explore inside of it. The DOMDocument.xml file is corrupt and dead. The DOMDocument.xml is the timeline so all my placement and animation is gone. However, my LIBRARY folder is in tact and has all of my library items as *.xml files.

I was wondering if anyone know how I can get those library items into another .fla file so I don't lose ALL my work?

I've tried creating a new .fla file and dragging the LIBRARY folder into the new .fla, but my library items don't show up when I load the new .fla in the Flash CS5 IDE.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

discorax picture discorax · Dec 15, 2010

I was able to work through a series of hacks to recover my library items. Here are the steps:

  1. Rename your corrupt FLA file with a new extension .zip.

  2. Explore the .ZIP file and locate the 'LIBRARY' folder.

  3. Copy the XML files from the LIBRARY folder to another location somewhere on your drive.

  4. Create a new default FLA file and save it.

  5. Change the file extension of your new FLA to .zip

  6. Explore your new .zip file and locate the 'LIBRARY' folder. It should be empty.

  7. Put your saved XML library item files into the new 'LIBRARY' folder inside the zip.

  8. Open the DOMDocument.xml file in an XML editor (Notepad will work).

  9. Add the following symbol node:

    <DOMDOcument ... > <symbols> <Include href="LibraryItemHere.xml" loadImmediate="false"/> </symbols> ... </DOMDocument>

  10. Make sure to have an Include node for each library item you want to recover.

  11. Change the file extension back to a *.fla

  12. Open the file with Flash IDE and your library items are available to you again.

  13. (optional) Do a SAVE AS into a Flash CS4 file and delete Flash CS5 from your computer until Adobe fixes the problem.

Hope this helps someone else.

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