How to recover a corrupted Adobe Captivate project

Issue: A Captivate project won't open

Your project file is corrupted and will not open. You can see the error below:

Error message
Error message

Solution

Caution:

This is a workaround, not a fix. 

The new utility from Adobe, dcache , lists all the Adobe Captivate project cache folders on the system. It also lists the corresponding project name, size, the status of the project (opened or closed), date modified, and cache size. Using this information, you may try out the following steps to recover full data (up to the latest state of the project) as sometimes Captivate fails to open a project file (.cptx) and there could be multiple reasons for such an issue.

  1. Download dcache.zip and extract the zip. Double click the exe  file to install the utility.

  2. Start the utility and select your “project cache location” using the “Browse” button (the default location is” My Documents\Adobe Captivate Cached Projects”). Now click the “Refresh” button.

    This will list all the project names for which the project cache folder is available.

  3. Check if you can see your project (which is not opening in Captivate) listed there. If yes, then double click on that row in the app.

  4. Navigate to the “Cache Path” folder and inside the “db” sub-folder, check whether the following exist in it:

    • compressed_data (folder)
    • objects (folder, this should contain an objects.cpo file and its size must be > 0 Kb
    • uncompressed_data (folder)
    • audio.cpad (file, size > 0 Kb )
    • info.cpi (file, size > 0 Kb )
    • text.cptd (file, size > 0 Kb )
    • thumbnails.cpth (file, size > 0 Kb )
  5. If these folders and files are present, then select them and create a zip file. Now rename this .zip to .cptx.

    Note:

    There may be other files/folders inside “ db ” (e.g. already_in_use.lock, backup_data, etc.). Do not include them while creating the zip, just include the ones mentioned above.

  6. Open the .cptx file in Captivate.

Additional information

An Adobe Captivate project file can become corrupted for any number of reasons. Listed below are the most common causes of Adobe Captivate file corruption:

  • Editing a project on a network drive or network location.
  • Closing Adobe Captivate improperly.
  • Using an older version of Adobe Captivate.
  • Copying and pasting of objects/slides in an older version of Adobe Captivate.
  • Using Adobe Captivate on a system that does not meet or exceed system requirements.

 Adobe

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