KB82223495: ArtPro - TIFFs seem randomly interchanged

Summary

When you open an ArtPro file with linked TIFFs, these TIFFs aren't shown as expected, meaning that it seems that they are randomly interchanged. The images are stored on a Windows file server and ArtPro uses the SMB protocol to connect to the file server.

Symptoms

• Images are displayed in the wrong position within your artwork.
• When you open the same ArtPro file again on either the same or another workstation, the images appear differently.
• Some workstations may at a given time show the issue, while other workstations don't show the problem.

Solution

There is a known issue when the linked images' names contain the # character. The SMB protocol is not able to handle these file names correctly and as such ArtPro is not able to pick up the correct image. You need to avoid using the # character in the TIFF images' file names.

ArtPro

• In older ArtPro versions, there is an option which will make ArtPro use an underscore (_) instead of a hash-tag # while writing away TIFFs during import.

You can find this option under ArtPro > Preferences > General > Import > Use SMB compatible image names. By default, this was not enabled and hash-tags # were used.

From ArtPro 12.1.0 onwards, ArtPro always writes an underscore (_) when creating TIFFs during import. Avoiding this problem as it was the hash tag # symbol that was causing the problem.

Automation Engine/ArtPro Action List

For newly created files

• If your ArtPro file with linked TIFFs was created in an Automation Engine workflow, you need to edit the ArtPro Action List (.aal) file which creates your ArtPro file. Edit the .aal file with the ArtPro Action List Editor:
  • Locate the Importing action.
  • Open the Image settings tab sheet and click the icon next to Extract Included Images. If there is a # character in the File Name field in that pop-up window, then replace it by a _ character.
• Your workflow may contain several Apply ArtPro Action Lists tasks which create these TIFF files. You need to verify each of the .aal files.

With the above recommendations in place, files which you process from now on, should no longer have this problem. Files which already existed and for which the TIFFs contained the hash-tag # character can still show the problem. In that case, you can try to run the files through your workflow again to get the file names modified.

For existing files

If you want to correct existing files, the easiest way to do this is to run an ArtPro Action List with the following actions:

1. Open the ArtPro File.
   1. Enable the Make image names SMB compatible option. This will convert the # characters in the TIFF files into _ characters.
2. Save the ArtPro File.
   1. Save by the same name in the same location. This will overwrite the existing file, relinking them to the renamed TIFF files.
3. Close the ArtPro File.