Page flow stopped

Question

I have been editing a chapter for three days with no problems, and out of the blue, the page flow stopped, and I can't get the paragraphs to advance to the next page. I have tried the following things:
checking to make sure the current and next pages have the same flow. (They do.)
saving and closing the file, exiting FrameMaker, and restarting my computer
using a different paragraph tag
turning off track text edits and attempting to advance to the next page with unmarked text
entering preview mode with track text edits turned off
I have the following set up:
FrameMaker 9.0p237
Windows 7 64bit
A very robust computer
A client with an insane deadline
Please help!
Thanks,
Karen

Answer 1

Karen, as you're on a deadline I'd suggest that it's easier to resurrect the file by creating a new file rather than troubleshooting what went wrong with the current file.
1. save your current file as-is, so that you're sure you have both the content that you've entered and the formatting. Personally I'd also do a second backup copy of the problem file with a different name, e.g. xxBAD or something.
2. create a brand new FM file. With both documents open, in the new file do File > Import > Formats, and select the "old" file in the drop-down menu. Then select which will copy all the master pages and paratags etc. over to your new file. Save this new file with a different name, "xxNew". Be sure to note what settings you've selected on the bottom section "While updating remove", so that if you need to you can re-do the import and change these settings. The initial selection depends on how many style overrides you might have used (if any) in the original document.
3. In the xxNew file, put your cursor in the text frame at the top of the first (and so far only) page.  Then do File > Import > File. Choose the xxOld file. At the bottom of the dialog be sure to select "copy into document". This will copy the content from the other file into the xxNew file.
In the "Import text flow" dialog that pops up, choose the Body page flow and the default "A (Main Flow)". Because you've already imported the formats you could use either the default "Reformat Using current document's formats" or the bottom "Retain Source's Formatting" -- the choice depends a lot on whether you have ad hoc formatting in your original document, e.g. highlighted words and just clicked "Bold" from the menu, as opposed to using a character style called "Bold", or changed the alignment of a paragraph but not made a new paragraph tag for that different alignment, both of those examples are of overrides. If you have used a lot of overrides then I would suggest using "Retain source's formatting".
4. In the xxNew file, page to the end of the document. Put your cursor before the "end of flow" symbol,
Start typing, enter a few carriage returns, whatever, to be sure that when you reach the end of the page that FM will automatically add a new page and your typing does extend forward onto the next page as you expect.
Assuming things are ok, then save this xxNew file as the original filename.
That should get you back to operation, and you can work out what went wrong with the original file once the deadline has passed.
Sheila