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

If you look back through the thread, you'll see that most if not all of the people who've reported problems with this seem to have solved the problem by following those procedures.

Some of them solved it, yes. However, it is unbelievable, that turning off any software that actively watches files is considered a solution over such a long time period.

The whole purpose of actively watching files is usually some sort of safety. Whether it may be to be safe from threats or be safe from loosing a file (or be safe that a file you worked on on your workstation is synced to your other devices in time). Besides, as mentioned before, MS is using an own software to watch office files, which makes it even more ridiculous.

I am aware that these are supposed to be temporary fixes, but it's time for a permanent fix, don't you think?

>> Will someone from MICROSOFT please respond with an update?

All anyone can tell you is that they're aware of the problem and are working on it.  If MS releases any sort of patch that's alleged to solve the problem, someone will announce it here.  Me, if nobody else beats me to it.

Well, I don't think they are taking the problem serious enough. People are paying about 100 EUR/USD per year for Office and are not able to use PowerPoint anywhere near productively. You just can't take the chance to loose all the pictures or rely on a vague temporary fix like turning of all actively watching software (since as a layman, you can't even be sure that you turned of all relevant processes and risk loosing the images again).

>>  I also tried the "hotfix" listed and got the same message as someone else on the thread saying "this fix doesn't apply to anything on your machine".... 

There are many different editions (or whatever they're called) of PowerPoint 2013.  For most consumer versions, any patches will be rolled out automatically; downloadable stuff is by and large for the MSI-installed/Enterprise versions.  That may be why the hotfix declined to install itself on your PC.  If you recall the URL, I'll be happy to take a look to see if I can figure that out;  I don't have the time to go back through all 26 pages of this thread looking for it though.

Here you go: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837661

Surely, you are not suggesting that remembering to turn your safety-net back-up software on and off every time you work on a PowerPoint file or moving your files in and out of folders is a solution to this issue. This is simply a temporary and PIA work-around, right? Right?

As a graphic designer working on multiple projects during the day, having to remember to turn off my back-up software while I work on a PowerPoint file, then turn it back on while I work on an InDesign or PhotoShop file, then back off again for a quick PowerPoint fix for a client is a huge problem. I had the same issue attempting to install the hotfix that others did, and saving files down to PPT did not seem to work for me as well.

I'll continue to turn my backup software on and off, but I consider this a temporary and extremely aggravating workaround to a long-running and very frustrating MS issue.

PPT 365 is close to being dysfunctional. I am not going to rant about a big cooperation not being able to produce software that is stabler than an average chinese iphone app, but just pointing out that there seems to be a straightfoward, fixable, serious problem, and it needs fixing.

• We all use cloud based storage. '
• Cloud based storage cause irreversible damage to your PPT files
• I have lost hours and hours and hours of work, often at very problematic times (leaving forthe airport, and boom, etc)
• I have to save my (very large) ppts every 5 minutes, with a new file name. My ppts are usually very large, due to integration of movies, so this quickly escalates to GB of data, that dropbox then struggle to sync. 
• We could switch off dropbox, but if we forget to do it (and we might) ... boom. If we forget to turn it back on, i dont have my files when i get to my destination (and perhaps work on a different computer).

I suggest that whatever every single other software and software producer around the globe do to avoid having sync crashes with dropbox, is done once more for the fantastic software PPT is, or would be, if it didnt suck my working hours down the drain.

I need the new features, and i cannot go back - it would be another counterproductive move.

I hope it gets fixed, or there is a fix, that does not involve abandoning dropbox nor ppt, both being hugely useful programs.

Best regards

Peter Bøggild, until recently happy fan of powerpoint, looking forward to becoming one again.

Surely, you are not suggesting that remembering to turn your safety-net back-up software on and off every time you work on a PowerPoint file or moving your files in and out of folders is a solution to this issue. This is simply a temporary and PIA work-around, right? Right?

No I wasn't really suggesting anything. I was just telling you my experience.

My solution was to seek out another backup product. I uninstalled Genie Pro and installed NovaBackup and never had another crash, when before I was crashing sometimes multiple times a day.

It was no big deal to me. I wasn't real happy with Genie anyway.

Yes, this is an aggravating situation... I get that. It cost me a few hours of work more than once. I sent a rather large file off to a client one evening and got an email from him the next morning. "What happened to all the images?"

If I remember right that was my first experience with the "RED X". So I had to go back in and reinsert all the images back into the deck. It was a major P-I-T-A.

Ultimately I figured out the sequence of the symptom of when this happens when I try to save and get that "Can't save" popup. So I started saving very often,; sometimes multiple times on a slide. So it became when I did crash, all I had to do is bring up the last save and all I lost was the few operations since the saving before. Hours became minutes.

I understand this is happening to a relatively small group of users. Can you imagine the outrage if this was a product wide problem with all users? I imagine it would be priority one for MS. As it is, we've been getting "They are working on it" for over a year now. 

I'm fortunate in the fact that with a new computer, Windows 8 and a fresh Office 365 install, this problem has gone away.

Going back to 2010 was really not an option for me so I had to figure out the best way to live with the problem pending some kind of solution out of Microsoft. At the end of the day I still had work to do and for my own sanity had to figure out the best way to deal with the situation the way it was not the way I wanted it to be. I spent a little time bitching to MS about the problem and nothing changed except my heartburn level. Once I started looking for a solution that I could implement regardless of what MS was doing, it just got easier to deal with and my hair stayed intact.

I still have backup... I still use Dropbox... and I still like Office 365. It may not be perfect, but it's what I use to get the job done.

Mickey Mills

www.presentationwow.com