Yesterday, we noticed that ELAN can no longer open our EAF files. The files were created in elan 3.6.0 I think, and then two weeks ago I upgraded to 3.7.2 (I first uninstalled the old elan and then did a fresh install of 3.7.2). AFter installing to 3.7.2, I had no trouble openning and saving my files.

But then after about 10 days of not touching our EAF files, we tried openning them yesterday. None will open. So I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling 3.7.2 again, but they still will not open. Elan opens, and then when I select a file to open, elan seems to begin to initialize but then it really does nothing. Nothing ever opens.

The operating system is Vista and I also have Microsoft Office Suite 2007 on my computer. I see that in my list of automatic updates that on June 15 there were several updates ("2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack1 (SP1)") and several Security Updates for 20007 Microsoft Office System. I don't really want to uninstall those. What should I do?

When installing elan just now, I noticed this message: "The installation of elan 3.7.2 is finished, but some warnings occured during the install. Please see the intallation log for details."

I could post or email the log (18k) if necessary. Just let me know (it only looks like there is one warning message in it).

Nick on behalf of Denise

There are two possible (or most likely) causes:

- there is a problem with loading the media file, maybe as a result of an update of the media player framework (Windows Media Player, Quick Time). What type of media files do you use? You can test by creating a new transcription and see if a new document is created normally, including audio/video player.

- there is a problem in loading/parsing the eaf files. This would be more difficult to explain; in theory no other software components should be involved in parsing the eaf files. You can test by renaming a media file that is linked to one of the eaf file and then open the file. When you skip the option to locate the media file, the eaf file is opened without media. If this fails the problem is indeed in the file loading.

PS. the install log file contains 1 warning about a QuickTime registry key not having been found. This is only important if you need QT to play your media files (e.g. in case of .mov).

-Han

Han, thanks for the questions and ideas. We are using *.wav files as our media files. I removed the wav file from its folder and then I was able to open just the eaf file (I told elan not to open the wav file when it could not find it). But then I have not been able to figure out how to make elan accept again the original wav file, no matter where it is.

Since someone else in our team created the original eaf files we are not sure if we know how to start a new one. Doing File+New+media and chosing the wav file does not work (again, elan does nothing). I also opened an old eaf and saved it as a etf file since I thought I could then try the File+New+template choice, but again, elan did nothing.

In "Installed Updates" (in Windows Vista Control Panel) I did not see any QuickTime or Apple updates during the last few weeks (that is, going back before the time when elan could open our files). We only see ones like:
2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack1 (SP1)
and various security updates for office, OneNote, Excel, PowerPoint, office publisher, Word etc. If you thought it would be helpful, we could email you a snapshot of the updates if you could send us an email address.

Thanks again. Nick (for DeniseB)

Ok, the problem must be the loading/playing of the .wav file. The best thing to do next is:
- in ELAN open a file with a .wav file or create a new one with a .wav
- wait until ELAN freezes and then quit ELAN
- open the ELAN log file; <user_home>\.elan_data\elan0.log (or elan1.log, look at the timestamp)
- at the end of the file there will likely be error messages, just before the error messages there will be a listing of codecs etc. used to play the file "Filters in the chain". You can post the messages here and/or send them to me:
han.sloetjes AT mpi.nl

-Han