Open & Repair is one of the most useful commands in Archicad, it is the solution to many common issues. The purpose of the repair process is to physically fix damaged files. When the damage occurs, one or more parts of the file become corrupted or lost.
The Archicad Plan File contains many different data structures (like Model Elements, Annotations, Details, Sections, Layouts, Stories, Categories, Attributes, …), and there are connections and relations among these structures. There are some very important parts of the file that cannot be substituted.
The repair process consists of three main phases:
- In the first phase, Archicad tries to recognize the healthy parts and data structures in the damaged file.
- In the second phase, it tries to recover the connections and relations among the healthy parts, and it also checks if it is possible to substitute the missing parts. It tries to build a healthy file from the undamaged parts of the original damaged file. If important and necessary parts are missing, sometimes Archicad is unable to fix the remaining data structures and then the file cannot be converted to a healthy file.
- In the third phase, Archicad checks the consistency of the repaired file in order to decide if the repair process was successful.
To read more about what causes the files to be damaged and in which cases Open & Repair helps, please check this article.
