corrupt .story files

Aug 17, 2015

David Lee
By David Lee

Hello there,

I am not sure if anyone can help me, but I have recently taken on a new role and inherited a whole list of Storyline files that are vital to my work.

Unfortunately one is corrupt (invalid or corrupt file) and I have no idea of the content as the person who made them has left the company. I have to make the Learning go live this week.

(There are no backups that can be found anywhere.) 

Is there anything I can do to recover the data? Anything would be useful. 

Many thanks

Dave Lee

9 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
over 8 years ago08/17/15 at 6:59 pm (UTC)

Hi Dave, 

File corruption is unpredictable, and there's no straightforward way to determine what causes it. Common causes are environmental (disk errors, power outages, improper shutdowns), viruses, failed Windows updates, and even file size (i.e., very large files have a higher risk of corrupting).
 
Consider these preventative measures to protect your project files:
 
1) Save and publish projects on your local hard drive. Working on a network drive or external USB drive can cause erratic behavior.
 
2) Save incrementally. If your app has an AutoRecovery feature, take advantage of it. If not, save a new version of your project every hour or so with a new file name each time. If a file becomes corrupt, you'll still have a working version available.
 
3) Install Dropbox. Snapshots of changes in your local Dropbox folder are kept for 30 days. If a file is damaged or deleted, you can restore a previous snapshot: https://www.dropbox.com/help/11/en.
 
4) Don't leave the app open and unattended for long periods of time. Some users have reported file corruption after leaving their apps open overnight. It's possible that a malware scan or disk backup could run because the machine is idle, making your app vulnerable to crashing.
 
However, there may still be a working version of your project in your temp files. Here's how to check:
 
1) Open this folder in Windows Explorer:
 
%appdata%\Articulate\Storyline
 
2) Scan the contents of this folder for a file that starts with the name of your project. If you find one, copy it to your desktop. If you find more than one, copy the latest version to your desktop.
 
3) Change the file extension of the copy on your desktop from *.tmp to *.story.
 
4) Double-click the file to open it in Storyline.
 
Hope that helps! 
David Lee
over 8 years ago08/18/15 at 7:00 am (UTC)

Thank you Ashley, that certainly is a very good tip. 

 

Unfortunately the file that is corrupted is one that was put on the network by y predecessor and we have used a different computer, his now long formatted and reassigned. I will however bear this in mind should I have a similar problem with one of my files. 

Kind regards

Dave

 

Jan Vilbrandt
over 8 years ago08/18/15 at 12:13 pm (UTC)

Your file looks very corrupt to me.

Every Story-file is a zip-file. Each zip-file starts with "PK" in the first two bytes of the file (I have used an file-editor to view the content of your file).

But this coding for a header in your file is missing.

Your file looks like it was coded with a special coding program? Do you use any custom coding-program to prevent anaauthorized access by other users?

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