Fixing ToolBook Book Corruption
This article will help you identify and fix ToolBook book corruption. It will explain how you can avoid book corruption going forward.
How to identify ToolBook corruption?
Chances are that you have ToolBook book corruption if you get one of the following errors:
- Last save interrupted, file may be damaged or corrupt
- A internal error has occurred in File 'Unknown' line 6769.
- General Protection Fault in the BAS.DLL module.
- Bad OHANDLE in No Object (-989855724/0xc5000014) Failed to Lock OHANDLE
- Initialization failed. Not enough memory or the file is damaged.
- The Most Recent Save Was Interrupted
Note that your error may not be exactly the same as some of them depend on the content.
How to Fix ToolBook corruption?
If you encounter ToolBook corruption it is good to know that the corruption is often tied to a single ToolBook Object. It can be a page, a background, an object on a page or background, a graphic stored in the resources and so on.
In most cases corruption can be removed and you work can be restored. But even if you cannot recover your file entirely, often getting rid of the object(s) which has the corruption will solve the problem.
Here is a list of things you should try when you encounter ToolBook file corruption:
- The first thing you do if you encounter ToolBook corruption is to CLOSE ToolBook. DO NOT save it as you risk saving the corruption into the file.
- Check to see if any of your backup files are corrupt. If your file is named myfile.tbk then commonly you will have a file called myfile.bak in the same folder as your ToolBook file. Rename file to something like myfilebak.tbk, making sure that you change the extension to .tbk. If your file has been saved with compression, in addition to the .bak file, you will have files with numbers for extensions like myfile.1 and myfile.2 etc, rename them so they have a tbk extension and check if have any corruption (see below on how to avoid ToolBook compression for the lowdown on saving with compression)
- Save with compression. This will cause ToolBook to do a more “thorough” save, fixing minor corruption issues, and identifying bigger book corruption problems. To save with compression use this keyboard short cut CTRL+SHIFT+S. Save with compression takes longer than a quick save, especially the first time.
- Run the Repair Kit on your file, doing so will solve most corruption problems. To run the Repair kit close ToolBook down and go to the Windows start menu ToolBook/utilities/Repair Kit and follow the wizard. The result will in most cases be a file repaired file, possibly with a page missing. In some very rare cases the repair kit will crash and you will need to try again.
Running steps 3 and 4 above is great to test if you have ToolBook corruption: if you can do both without any problems then your file is not corrupt.
More strategies for removing ToolBook corrruption
Anyway, if the above does not solve your problem, things are getting a little more serious. In any case, all is not lost yet so let’s crack on and see look at some of the options we have:
Options all involve opening the file in ToolBook to try and remove/locate the offending object(s). After trying each of the steps below test to see if you still have corruption by running steps 3 and 4 above (save with compression and repair kit.)
- While you are trying to eliminate the problem, try close down the book explorer if you have it open. The book explorer “scans” every page in the book and if you have corruption on one of them it may materialize itself on all pages by having the book explorer open. So while it’s not the Book explorers “fault” it can make errors worse than they are.
- Since corruption may occur on all kinds of objects best get rid of any objects which we don’t need anyway. So try to remove unused resources. A quick way to do that is to use the Remove Unused resources tool which can be found under Tools/LiveXtensions on the Devex Tab
- Check if you have multiple backgrounds which are visually identical, if you do, combine them into one. To do so you can use the Merge Backgrounds tool found under Tools/LiveXtensions on the Devex Tab
- Go through each page of your ToolBook book. If ToolBook throws an error on a particular page, try deleting that page.
- Try and import the pages from your file into a new blank book. Use the Insert/Pages feature. Sometimes it can be useful to try and import them without the background. If you cannot import all the pages then try to import the first half, If that doesn’t work then try to import the second half, if that doesn’t work try import half one of the halves etc. Try to pinpoint which page is causing trouble so you can avoid importing it.
- Try removing 3rd party extensions or system books.
Note that you may have to do a combination of the suggestions above to make it work.
If you file will not open and you cannot run the repair kit or import the pages then your book is likely to be beyond salvation.
How to avoid ToolBook Book corruption
At great risk of repeating myself here is how you avoid (almost) ever getting ToolBook book corruption
- Save often using CTRL+SHIFT+S - this will fix or identify problems early – AND you will have automatic backups as a nice bonus.
- Use the Repair Kit - to fix small problems early.
- Never save the book after any of the corruption errors have occurred. This might save the corruption into your tbk file.
- Fix any corruption problems right away, as soon as you discover them - don’t wait. Do this even though sometimes Toolbook will let you work on other pages without any problems occurring. But if you don’t fix the problem right away, there is a great risk that the problem will be worse and that you risk losing the work you do anyway.
Did I mention: fix your problems early while they are small:-)
This article is part of a series of articles called Guide to fixing ToolBook problems. If you problem isn’t solved above then you might want to one of the other articles in the series.