Problem with file recovery

[Anonymous]

Hi There,

I have a problem with Cad file. Once I open it crashing straight away. I was trying to recover that file (incuding xrefs), but did not help and still crashing. What else I can do? Is there any way to fix that file.

Thanks

[gotphish001]

Not really a solution, but try opening the xrefs one at a time. Maybe you will find that one of those is crashing and you can remove it to get the main drawing to open.

Something else to try is change all the xref file names in windows explorer to something else. I'd add TEST at the end of the name temporarily. That will break all the xrefs in the main drawing. Now try to open the main drawing to see if it opens without any xref locations that are working. If it does then you probably have a problem in one of the xrefs. Now change the xref file names back to original file names without the TEST, one by one and reload them in the main drawing. If the drawing crashes then you'll know which file is crashing it. 

Maybe you have a circular xref that is crashing it by accident. Xref A is referenced into Xref B and Xref B is referenced in Xref A also. Autocad doesn't know which one to update first so it can crash. I call it the Xref circle of doom! It can happen by accident. I good way to find out is use the reference manager and turn the view to tree view. That way you can see if there are xrefs nested inside other xrefs. See image to see how to toggle this if you don't know where. You can find out if there is an xref inside of another xref that you didn't' realize and then are putting it back into the same drawing.

[gotphish001]

Don't forget to change all your file names back from whatever suffix you add to them! You don't want to break other drawings.

Actually I'd make a copy of the entire drawing and all the xrefs and put it on your desktop for the testing I mentioned.  Works easier if xref are/were relative. That way you won't break other peoples work if they are using them. After it's solved you can fix the REAL file.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

It is sorted now. Once I copied file to different location, where it cannot see the xrefs, I was able to open it. I noticed that only one file is unreferenced. I reloaded that file and then it crashed again, so I knew what is causing the problem. I am not sure what was wrong with the file, but once I audited and purged and remove all xrefs from the file I open main file again and it is fine now.

Thanks