I've spent dozens of hours on my first project since upgrading to Poser 5. Suddenly, it has a problem. When I open the file, Poser loads for a while and then displays an empty desktop (not even any tools or controls). Sometimes it also shows an empty project window. If I look at the hierarchy, it displays most or all of pieces of the project (three figures and half a dozen original props made in Carrara). I have several versions of the file that I saved with different names as I made major changes, but all of them exhibit variations on this behavior. Tech support at Curious Labs seems to be totally unwilling to lift a finger to help (their sage advice: "You should save your work more often." Thanks, guys... (boneheads!)). I sent them a copy of the file asking if they would try to open it to make sure it wasn't just my system doing something strange. Their response: Yup - seems like the file is corrupted, alright. (Thanks again, guys. Must be why you get the big bucks.) Has anyone ever seen a problem like this, and if so, what might be done to recover the file? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I doubt this will help, but sometimes while working in P5, my document window will go all white, not showing anything. If I do a render at that point, it will render fine. Then clicking on a body part or something to clear the render, it will be back to normal. Sounds though like you'll have to start over with it. Try saving your Carrara made props into the prop library to make them more 'poser friendly'. Then rebuild your scene. Hopefully someone else can provide better help though.

Can't help other than to say that I'm having the same problem. Lost 10-12 hours work last night when P5 corrupted the .pz3 during save. I checked the file in wordpad, and it looks like the save cut off somewhere in the middle (not a .pz3 expert, but the final line is cut mid-statement).

The worst part about this is that it happens though (or even because) I dutilfully save my work. I guess now I'm supposed to back-up my back-up. Thanks again, CL.

Very, very frustrating....

I've had the white screen as well, and if the re-render doesn't work, sometimes I can clear the problem by changing to another room, then back to Pose.

I've had the same thing happen several times in P4.

hmm, that is funny as I just figured out that in carrera - my file was being corrupted by Remove Unused [anything]. Your system resources may be used up by the time that you save - what I do is save each step (addin, position, set parent) of creation as a different name. Then every once in awhile do an open at step - if good - save to the real figure file. Make sure you have vmem maxed and plenty of hard disk 2. I have been making around 10meg+ files like this and not had the corrupted file in P5 [yet ;-) knocking on wood]. (sys is xppro, 2.8, 1gigmem,vmem dedicated hd and 120gig ntsf hd dedicated just to ppp and p5 (can u tell p5 justified new machine..)). Good luck as that starting over with project really sucks - lost my mobile rough terrain crane from autocad 4 times before I figured out that the Remove Unused stuff in carrera was corrupting the files I was saving! Wierd part was - eovias response was same as cl "save more often". Another help[less] desk :-(

I dont know about files in P5 (Ill find out in June) but in Poser 4 there is a routine where a file would become unusable and could not be opened, its icon would change. At the same time another file would appear with PZSAV_ at the beginning of its name. Eg if something happened to the file pleaseblowupthisfile.Pz3 it would be accompanied with Pzsav_ pleaseblowupthisfile.Pz3 which would be a copy of the original file. Can you see files that look like this.

One thing you might try (I had a file that made my entire work area vanish like yours) is to save a UI dot of a working window. Then try to load your file and reset the UI with the dot. This may not help, but it got me out of a jam last week.

I've investigated several of the suggestions, but nothing has helped so far. Thanks for the suggestions, though. I've tried removing and reinstalling Poser, the figures patch, and the latest updater to no avail. Does anyone know of any utilities that will run through a Poser file and fix, remove, or at least identify any problem areas?