Opening Large FormZ 8 File

[Leonidas]

Help!

 

I was multi-copying a grouped item in a FormZ 8 file.  I saved the file on my Windows 7 machine and closed FormZ.  Now I realize that my file is an enormous 1.7 GB and I can't reopen the file.  I'm sure to lose a day or more's work if I can't find a work around.

 

A few things I've already tried with no success:

 

1.  Opening the .fzb file (also huge at 1.25GB)

 

2.  Importing the file into a new project

 

3.  Opening on another FormZ machine (Mac OS)

 

4.  Updating Graphics Card driver to latest version

 

I'm at a loss.  I was on the phone with tech support and he really tried to help me through it but we had no luck so I wanted to try posting here for other ideas.  One other thought he had was to download the FormZ free version which apparently might tax my system less that FormZ Pro 8.0 does.  He offered me some tips to keep my file size down in the future but I need to recover this file immediately if possible.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

Hardware Specs:

 

Dell Precision M 4700 Laptop

 

2.4 GHZ processor

 

AMD Firepro M4000 Graphics Card

 

16GB RAM

[Alan Cooper]

Leonidas, sorry to hear this, I feel your pain. I hope someone else has a solution for this immediate problem of yours. Maybe an auto save file will be found on your system to save some of your loss, it should be turned on if you haven't disabled it? I have only been using FormZ about a year so still on the learning curve, but on my Windows system, which has moderate processor, graphics card but lots of RAM, it is more prone to instability [crashes or 'Form Z is not responding'] than any other program I have used, and I rely strongly on regular 'save as' new file. I highly recommend the new free plugin from FormZ Lab: 'Save with incremental file name'. If all else fails, you can use this lesson as a safeguard for the future.

[Tech]

Hi Leonidas,

 

Sorry you are having trouble.  As we discussed on the phone, the model that you multi-copied many many many times contained a lot of bad geometry, and was using 100% Display Resolution, which caused more than 10 times the number of polygons necessary for each of these instances.  As far as recovering your current file, if you tried the things we suggested to you, then as we mentioned, the next step is to send in the file and we will see what we can do to help.

 

Hi Alan,

 

The Not Responding can occur when formZ is working on an intensive operation and generally does not indicate a problem.  (You can check the formZ Process CPU and RAM activity in the Task Manager to see if it is still working on the operation.)  Of course, if you ever have any issue that does not complete an operation in a reasonable time, or does actually crash, please let us know and we will get it corrected ASAP.

[Tech]

Hi Alan,

 

From your other Not Responding thread, it looks like it was running multiple antivirus / multiple anti-malware programs that was responsible for that issue:

 

http://forums.formz.com/index.php?/topic/641-form-z-not-responding/&do=findComment&comment=1712

[DennisA]

How about importing only 1 group at a time into a new project (objects, materials, lights, views etc)

Good luck feel your pain. In retrospect I usually keep multiple copies of fmz & fzb backups during a project till I open next day and leave in trash. Not only helps if you can not open file but if you need something that you lost along way.