In January of 1994 reports appeared in the press saying that users of 
1-2-3 were experiencing file problems.    Issues like this are not 
widespread but when they do occur are most often are not caused by 1-2-3.  
File problems can result from magnets, disk write caching, certain network 
software, etc.  Lotus has tracked these issues and found in a very few 
cases 1-2-3 is inadvertently saving files which cause a General 
Protection Fault (GPF) when the files are opened.   The enclosed 
utility (FIXWK4.EXE) can be used to correct problems with files that 
are causing GPF's if the problem was caused by this one issue that has 
been identified by Lotus.  All the data in the file should be intact.

Using FIXWK4.EXE:

1) At a DOS prompt, type FIXWK4 filename.WK4.  FIXWK4.EXE can be used to
fix several files in one directory simultaneously by using the 
wildcard *.WK4 in place of the filename.  If your WK4 file is password
protected, you will be prompted to enter the password.

2) FIXWK4 writes the newly fixed file over the old one.  You may wish to
make a copy of your old file before using FIXWK4.

3) If FIXWK4 detects a problem that it can correct, it indicates how many
records were changed.  These changes only affect formatting, all data will
be unmodified.  FIXWK4 changes the formatting in column A in one or more 
rows in your file to be numerical format Fixed 2 Decimal Places.  After 
FIXWK4 modifies your file, please check your file to see if you wish 
to modify any formatting.

4) FIXWK4 is only for use with WK4 files and only addresses this one 
known issue.  If your file is not fixed by FIXWK4 it is likely that you 
are experiencing unrelated file problems perhaps due to your hardware or
configuration.


Avoiding the File Open GPF problem in the future:
1) As always, Lotus encourages backing up important data files.

2) In most cases the problem with 1-2-3 only happens when a user is 
working simultaneously with multiple files which have large amounts of 
formatting in common.   For example, files for each month of the year 
which were based on one original formatted file.  If one file is closed 
and then another file which was open is saved after that, 1-2-3 might 
write incorrect format information into the file. Opening the latter 
file could cause a GPF.  Below are four ways to avoid this problem. 
Please follow the steps which most closely meets you business needs.

2a) You could modify your files so that they are no longer copies of each 
other by selecting an unused column and formatting it differently in each 
file that will be open at the same time.  

2b) You can choose to work with only one open file at a time or with 
multiple files that do not share common formatting.

2c) Alternatively, if you are working with multiple commonly formatted 
files, when planning to close some files, save files as needed and then 
close ALL files that you have open.  You can then reopen some of those 
files and continue working on them if you choose.  

2d)  Lastly, the incorrect formatting that is involved in this problem 
is a small subset of formatting specific to WK4 files.  After you use 
FIXWK4 to fix your affected WK4 files, opening and saving  these files 
as WK3/FM3 will remove this type of formatting from your file and prevent 
you from encountering the problem in the future.  However, other advanced 
features of 1-2-3 Release 4 such as Range Versions and Query tables
will not be saved to the WK3 file.  Consult the Help screen for 
File Save As for a list of what happens when saving a WK4 as WK3.

3) As a general tip, excessive formatting in files can greatly increase 
the size of files and the amount of memory needed to read them.  Be aware 
that selecting an entire column or sheet by clicking on a sheet or 
column letter and then applying a format affects your file down to row 
8192.  To remove unnecessary formatting, select and delete all rows 
below the active area of your file.  You can also delete all columns to 
the right of the active area of your file.


Other file problems:
FIXWK4 only corrects the one file pattern Lotus has identified as a problem
in 1-2-3. Other problems with files may exist for a variety of reasons
including power fluctuations during saving and network issues.  Below is
some general information from the Lotus Technical Support library that 
may be helpful to you if you experience some of these other issues.  Also,
general file problems resulting from power fluctuations during saving, etc.
can often be corrected by third-party file fixing utilities such as 
Rescue Plus from Intex Solutions, PC Tools from Central Point Software, 
or Norton Utilities from Symantec.

1) File Open of a file causes the file to be fully displayed and then a 
GPF is received.  This is likely the result of an invalid formula in the 
file. To test this, create a blank file with as many sheets as your first 
file, set 1-2-3 for Manual Recalculation, and Combine your problem file 
into your new blank file.  If this is OK but you then receive a GPF when 
pressing F9, a formula is at fault.  Repeat the procedure with the blank 
file but selectively combine ranges from your source file until you 
determine where the problem formula is.  Once you have found the formula, 
again combine the whole file into a blank manual recalc-ed blank file, 
delete the bad formula, press F9, re-enter the formula correctly, and set 
the file back to automatic recalculation. 

2) "Error Reading File" means that part of the structure of the 1-2-3 file 
is damaged.  This can happen if a WK4 file is transmitted over a modem or
other communications device using a protocol such as XMODEM that pads the
file with extra bytes at the end rather than preserving the file size. 
When transmitting WK4 or Improv IMP files over a MODEM, either compress the
file first or use a protocol such as Kermit that preserves the file's size.
"Error Reading File" can also be caused by saving a WK4 over an 
IBM Lan Server 3.0 network if you have not yet obtained the new DOS 
redirector for Lan Server 3.0.  Please consult your IBM representative or
support center for more information.  "Error Reading File" can also be 
caused by trying to open a file that was not completely written by 1-2-3.  
Users who are saving files to floppy diskettes and remove the floppy from 
the drive during saves or run out of disk space during saves may experience 
this problem.

3) File Open Combine of a WK4 file hangs 1-2-3. 
This file may have formatting in it that cannot be processed by 1-2-3
during a Combine operation.  As a workaround, either save the file as WK3 
and then Combine, since this will not try to combine the formatting with 
the data, or open the file and use Copy & Paste to move the desired data 
between your files.

4) "Out of Memory" when opening a file even though plenty of memory is
available.  This error means 1-2-3 is unable to process all the formatting
in the file.  This file was most likely created by combining into a file
an extreme number of cells which had just bold or italic formatting but
in other ways were using the default format.  To avoid creating files like
this, turn off the bold or italic attributes in cells if you plan to
combine an extremely large amount of data.  Alternatively use Copy & 
Paste Special to move data between files but choose to paste as cell 
contents only.