PowerPoint 2013: Images in presentation disappear - and are replaced with 'The image part with relationship ID rId2 was not found in the file'

>> It appears to be an issue with images being locked by some program or other.  What I don't get is why you get the 'cannot open' error immediately before the 'cannot save' error. 

Does Powerpoint unzip the files while working on them to a different / hidden directory which is subject to further monitoring?

It does write either to the temp directory or (more normally, I think) to the same folder as the file you've just opened is in.  

For example, if you open TEST.PPTX, PPT creates a hidden ~$TEST.PPTX file in the same folder.  It holds both files open.  If some other program is monitoring changes to the folder, it might try to lock one or both files, which can cause PPT to flip out.

It might be worth looking through the process list to see if ANYTHING's there that might be monitoring file opens/saves/changes.  And another thought:  I wonder if Outlook's Journaling feature might be sticking its nose into things.  You might want to verify that journaling is off, at least for a test, and it'd be worth quitting Outlook as well.

And more basically, if you have Windows Explorer set to show a preview pane and a PPT file is being previewed, then the file's likely open, which can also trigger PPTSnits

I have some further information which may be of some help.  Here is the process that I went through that reproduced the error and the unusual results:

1. Opened presentation with pre-existing photos
2. Added 2 new slides, with images copied & pasted from a website
3. Saved twice.  The usual 'cannot open' and 'save as...' diaglog box appeared.
4. Saved as a new file and exited Powerpoint

When I re-opened the new file in Powerpoint, the NEW photos were still visible, but all OLD photos had disappeared, with the usual rID2 placeholder.

I then renamed the pptx files as .zip files to check the contents.  In the \ppt\media directory, only the 2 recently-inserted photos were there.  The 8 old ones were not anywhere to be seen!

It appears to be an issue with images being locked by some program or other.  What I don't get is why you get the 'cannot open' error immediately before the 'cannot save' error.  Does Powerpoint unzip the files while working on them to a different / hidden directory which is subject to further monitoring?

Does this help?

Having just upgraded to Powerpoint 2013 (through Office 365), I was diasppointed to have been immediately presented with this problem.  I have tried every solution and the only one that works is saving as Office 2003-compatible files.

I am able to reproduce the problem by holding down CTRL+S.  After a few seconds of repetitive saving, it comes up with 'unable to open file' etc.  All files are stored locally.

I have disabled all programs that could cause a sharing violation:

• AVG antivirus
• Google Drive monitor
• Dropbox monitor
• Squirrelsave monitor (automatic backup)
• OneDrive monitor

The problem MUST be related to how it saves pptx files, since the only way that I can prevent the eror is working with ppt files.  This problem occurs even if I create a simple new pptx file, so it's nothing to do with editing old files.

I'm not sure if it is related, but I have not uninstalled Office 2003, which is my previous version.  I have reverted to Office 2003 for all editing now, which rather defeats the object.

Is there an ETA on a solution?  This seems to have been a problem for many months.

Kind regards

--

Ronnie Davies

My understanding is that SkyDrive (now called OneDrive) itself isn't the problem, it's the OneDrive APP.  The app is what keeps files in the cloud and on your local drive in synch; it's synching software like this that seems to cause issues.

If you don't have the app, then you don't need to worry about turning anything off.

There's more info about it here, including "how to uninstall" instructions.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/windows-app-faq