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TondaSoucek

Hello everyone. I have been creating a family chronicle for over five years and now, when I want to open the file (chronicle) again, the Scribus program reports an error. I have version 1.5.7 and I tried 1.6.2 = same error. It loads about 38% and then it says that I have no space in the cache - I deleted it and the problem repeats. When I disconnect the external drive where I have saved the photos, the program starts with only text. I reconnect the drive and the file does not open. Other files (other books) work fine. I am desperate and do not know what to do with it.
It says the error: "Scribus crashes due to the following exception: UNKNOWN EXCEPTION." It also says error number 5324 and 5188.
I would be very grateful for your help!!!
Thank you very much, Antonin Vltavsky

Lynn

I'm not sure what the cache errors you're seeing look like, but if the file loads with the images disconnected and crashes when they're available, I would guess that your computer doesn't have enough memory to open the file because the image files are too big/numerous.

Personally, I'd probably try splitting the file in half - make two copies of the original file and open one of them while the drive with the images is disconnected. Try deleting all the images from the back half of the file. Then attempt reopening the copy with the drive connected. If it works, that's good! You can repeat on the other copy, removing the images from the front half of the file. If you eventually go to export the PDF you can tell it to export just the half with images from each file and then merge them together in one of the many PDF merge programs online.

Another option is that your images are really high resolution (if, say, Scribus is scaling them to 10% or 20% and showing 300 dpi as the resolution? That means you could shrink the files to 1/5-1/10 of their current size and have zero difference in your print output). You could address this by:
- making a copy of your images in their own folder (say, "ResizedChronicleImages")
- resizing the copies to be smaller
- temporarily renaming the folder where the original images were
- when you open Scribus it won't be able to find the original images, so it should be able to open.
- You can then go to Extras > Manage Images. All your pictures will have an x over them. Click on one image and then on Search, which is on the right. In the window that pops up, click on Change and select your resized image folder in the file picker.
- Scribus will search for your image and find it in the new folder as long as the filename is the same! The important thing here is to click the Apply to All Matching Images checkbox at the bottom. Scribus will then find the copies of all/most of your images that are in the new folder.
- You might have to repeat that a few times if it misses a few

A third option that I can't give much advice about might be to check your computer specifications or test the file on a borrowed computer with more memory from a friend or family member. I know I used to run Scribus on a laptop with 8 GB of RAM and I now run it on one with 32 GB of RAM and it is night and day how well this program runs on big files.

TondaSoucek

Hello.
Thank you very much for your advice. I have tried everything, but unfortunately nothing. I will probably have to contact some professional company. If I were to lose the book, then .... I don't even want to think about it.
Thank you very much again! AV

prcek

Hi Antonin, Scribus files are XML files, that can be modified in a text editor. So you can play with a COPY of the document and try to remove some of recently added elements.
Not sure what causes the crash, though.
Is it possible you have saved document in compressed format and there is not enough memory/disk space to decompress it?
What happens when you disable or enlarge image cache in preferences?
--
Any job looks easy until you try doing it yourself.

sersha

Have you tried to "Collect for output" and then checking if everything is in your chosen folder, that folder "Images" is present and in it are your image files indeed existing , then opening the .sla file from that folder.
At least, it would help you to pinpoint the problem. Obviously, it is something related to your images.
Good luck! S.

a.l.e

Please upload your file to this forum or if you want to keep it private, to https://bugs.scribus.net (and mark the ticket as private: only the developers will be able to see it).

If it's a Scribus issue (and not a failure of your disk), we might be able to make the file readable again.

TondaSoucek

Thank you very much everyone, I wrote to the developers. I will hope, I tried everything you wrote above and nothing.
Thanks Antonin

a.l.e

Having seen the file in the issue tracker -- and as jghali said -- it's likely that you're facing a memory issue.

Here what you can do (based on what Lynn also wrote above):

  • Close Scribus
  • Duplicate the folder where you keep the images that are linked from the Scribus file, give it a new name. (my-images-original)
  • Make sure that the duplicated folder contains all your images at the original resolution.
  • Use a tool to reduce the resolution of all the images in the folder: the size of the image in the "information" ( (width and height in mm)  should stay the same, but you reduce the number of pixels in the image (how much you should reduce it, depends on the size of the image; but you might target a resolution of about 100 dpi)
  • Open the document in Scribus and see if now it works.

If it now works, then you will need to find a solution to let Scribus use more RAM. But, in the meantime, you can continue your work.

If it does not work, you / we will need to go deeper in the issue to find out what the issue is...

TondaSoucek

The problem is that I don't have photos in one folder. The file is a family chronicle, where we write daily. The photos are sorted by year and then by individual events (ZOO, Christmas, vacation, birth of children...). So you can't put all the photos in one file and make them smaller.
Unless you try a laptop with more RAM. I'll have to buy one, maybe that will solve the problem. Otherwise, I have a big problem.
The worst thing is that it never worked and I haven't done anything since. It doesn't work out of the blue.
But thank you very much for the help you offer!