recover procedure window from (possibly?) corrupted experiment file

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Mon, 03/18/2013 - 11:13 am

Hi,

I worked on an Igor experiment all day last friday, regularly saving it to disk. However, Igor created .pxpT0, .pxpT1, etc. files, leaving the original .pxp file untouched. According to page II-43 in the Igor manual, this is probably due to some error in the file save, but I don't remember any popup windows or other warning signs when saving (using ctrl+s).
The original .pxp file size is 1,752,098,134 bytes, the two most recent pxpTx files are 1,672,688 bytes, and the newest .pxpTx is saved right after the previous one (.pxpT5: date created ... 11:44:57, modified ... 11:45:25, .pxpT6: created ... 11:45:25, modified ... 11:46:50)

When I now open one of the .pxpTx files, Igor loads the data, but doesn't load the procedure window (it's blank) and the history.

I really want to get the procedure window content (1 day of work...) - any suggestions?
I looked at the pxp file with a text editor, but could only find the history in plain ascii. I had a quick look at TN003, but didn't see a solution right away and I hope there might be an easier way.
I also noticed that in uncorrupted .pxp files, the procedure window content is visible as plain ascii - does this mean I'm out of luck?

On a related note, how can I look at the Igor startup log? I vaguely remember doing this, but can't find it anymore...

Windows 7, Igor Pro 6.31 64 bit, .pxp file size: 1.7 GByte.

Thanks,

Fabrizio
Quote:
I worked on an Igor experiment all day last friday, regularly saving it to disk. However, Igor created .pxpT0, .pxpT1, etc. files, leaving the original .pxp file untouched.


In a save over an existing file Igor writes to a temporary file (.pxpT0), then, if that succeeded, deletes the original file (.pxp) and renames the temporary file with the original name. So Igor is getting an error at the "delete the original" step. I don't know why you did not get an error message.

This kind of problem is usually caused by by virus protection or other security software that prevents Igor from deleting the original file. It could conceivably be caused by not having sufficient privileges to delete a file in the given directory.

In theory you should have a complete history of your experiment's contents in the various files (.pxp, .pxpT0, . . .). If you open them and the procedure window (I presume you are talking about the built-in procedure window) is empty in all of them, then it is gone.

Quote:
I also noticed that in uncorrupted .pxp files, the procedure window content is visible as plain ascii - does this mean I'm out of luck?


I suspect so, assuming that you have opened all of them in Igor and found no procedure window contents.

Quote:
On a related note, how can I look at the Igor startup log?


I'm not aware of any startup log.

March 18, 2013 at 12:49 pm - Permalink

Thanks...
It was on a network drive - usually works ok, but I guess I should start double-checking before closing an experiment in future.

As for the log, guess I'm confusing it with the notebook created after an aborted experiment load.

March 18, 2013 at 02:19 pm - Permalink