Keynote crashed, presentation file disappeared

I have to agree with all of the above. It has all worked flawlessly until last week for me. BTW my networked backup using time machine at the office stopped working as well, so I don't have any backup files to fall back on.

Just to update... I don't think it has much to do with 10.8.4. The first week of september I did not have any problems, the second week I did not have any problems. Last week I have had to remake the same Keynot presentation (from older versions stored elsewhere) again and again. Updated to 10.8.5 this morning, trying to change (mainly deleting slides) for the next presentation and again lost the entire presentation. If it was a 10.8.4 issue, 10.8.5 does not fix it.

BTW did all the hard drive checks etc, but everything seems to be in order..

3400 views 61 replys and nothing of use from apple.

These are serious problems that need to be adressed. I am experiencing the same problem and the probllem previously outlined below.

- The worst and most frequent problem is: some of the media contents (images, videos) suddenly DISAPPEAR from the presentation, randomly (but always all from the same slide, some slides remain intact), leaving squares with big crosses inside where the media file used to be. In every case, a kinf of temp folder is created on my computer, containing all the media elements (I didn't bother to see it's only the missing ones or not). In the best case I can reopen the file and save the few slides that can be saved (where medias files haven't disappeared) in a fresh keynote presentation, but in the worst case I can no longer open the file at all.

Apple please help!

Thanks for posting. I am experiencing a wierd variant of some of the problems described above. Symptoms are:

- Create a KN presentation by cutting a pasting slides from a variety of previous presentations. Some of the cut/paste slides contain video, audio, Motion-created animations, complex KN-created animations, or a combination of some/all of these elements.

- Save the finished presentation with a new name. (Say KNPres1.key for ease of reference)

- Ensure Time Machine has backed up new file.

- At some later point. Open the new presentation to play it. Results are:

i) It plays fine. Or

ii) It puts up a dialog box at some random point say "The Location of KNPres1.key cannot be determined." Options are either to Cancel or Save As... If Cancel, then Keynote quits and file disappears completely from the SSD. If "Save As..." then the file appears to save OK, using a new name (Say KNPres2.key).

iii) Keynote freezes completely and will not even allow a Force Quit. Only option is to shut down the Mac (MBP Retina, latest model, never had any issues with Keynote before). On reboot, the file has completely disappeared.

Obviously, not knowing which of the three scenarios is going to happen is pretty nerve-wracking. And it's absolutely not in the very stable tradition of Keynote we've always enjoyed since the application was first launched.

So far, in my case, the Time Machine backup version of KNPres1.key has always been available to restore from, even if the original has completely disappeared from the SSD.

Have experimented with the restored file. Have noticed the following. When first restored, it has a file size of 1.18GB (I would expect large files, given the 1080p video content embedded). However, when I use Cmnd-D in Finder to duplicate it (to create a "safety copy") filesize increases to 1.26GB.

The duplicated versions tends to be a bit more stable. The restored version of the original file will usually crash straight away. The duplicated version dies more slowly, usually lasting a few playbacks before hanging.

I have also had the "cannot find the video file XXX" dialog box appear. I suspect Keynote is looking for a bit of rendered QT video it has produced internally (say for a transition) not for an actual movie file.

I have a 'must win' presentation coming up to a Head of Government and his senior Ministers. I am currently exceptionally nervous about this, as you can imagine!

Here's hoping Marvericks will be simultaneously released with the "complete overhaul" of the iWork Suite that was trailled at WWDC. And that OS and Apps will play nicely together...

I have 10.8.5 and it does not solve the catastrophe that Keynote has become. Too bad I and my customers totally depend on it...

I have taken the time-consuming and cumbersome steps to get ol' Lion to run from an external drive. Also bought and installed Keynote again, this time from the App Store. So far it seems to work without the crashes and the corruptions, but it's of course not a fix, it's a big pain. But for those who must, reverting to Lion seems to work.

As I have all the other apps I need for this work on my Mountain Lion drive (Logic, Illustrator, Photoshop...), the hours I now have left up to my big presentation will be crazy.

To be fair, the iWork team contacted me asking for crash logs and such. So if they'll be able to fix it I don't know, but at least someone is taking this seriously enough.

As John pointed out this is not a fix, but a workaround.

I have hundreds of Keynote presentations, so this disappearing file is a big deal to me.

I have found that if I copy the presentation to a portable harddrive, and do not include the portable as a timemachine back up, I can run all my presentations without a crash.

I have been running three presentations a day for the past three weeks without any issues.

Creating the presentations is difficult, because you have to make sure that you backup every change (with the make duplicate checked in the preferrences) because the Keynote is going to crash and delete your file. At least this way you don't lose very much work.

Almost 5,000 keynote users have visited this forum, and not a word from Apple.

As always, it's good if everyone who experiences these errors fills out a bug report.

Until this is fixed, I boot Lion from an external drive whenever I do Keynote work. So far, documents stay intact and Keynote doesn't crash.

Message was edited by: Jan Renell

I started running into my files disappearing after doing the 10.8.4 update also, and I decided to do my presentations using copies of the original file similar to what AJ898 does. So if I ran into the problem which I have been, it would only impact a copy of the file. One thing I noticed over the past week or so is that I have not seen the files disappearing anymore. So I went back and checked to see what may have changed in that past week, and I remembered that I had installed the 10.8.5 supplemental update. My guess at this point is that fixed the problem. Just wanted to pass that along, and hope it clears up things for everyone in this thread.

Yes, it might very well be that the supplemental update did it. I have only tried a few moderately complex presentations after installing, but so far, so good.

The problems of late has been quite a scare, so I feel nervous about trusting Keynote in 10.8 again...

Too bad Apple didn't list any iWork-related fix in this update. It'd be great to have some more testimonials from people. So please, install the update, open your baddest presentations, throw in huge pictures and movies, shuffle stuff around, save, duplicate and copy between documents. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I think the supplemental update fixed it for me too. It was only a couple of weeks of using it though before Mavericks and the new Keynote came out, so I'm on that now and haven't had a problem yet... although the interface is taking some getting used to.

Based upon the input from folks who have had some success with Keynote I decided to give it a try this week in my classes after checking to see I had the latest updates to the system and Keynote (I did).

I had two class lectures and a professional presentation to a bunch of small business folks.

One lecture was 53 megs with three video. The other was about 16 meg with no video. The professional presentaton was a Powerpoint converted to Keynote.

I treated the presentations as I always have. Meaning I tweaked them right up untill the presentation began. I had two thumb drives for backup. (No Confidence in Keynote) and went for it.

I am happy to report that Keynote worked just like the old days of good old reliable Keynote.

Perhaps the Keynote gang got the messages from the forum and ...

much to my delight may have fixed it!!

I at least have enought confidence to go for it again next week.

FYI, Keynote works great in Mavericks and the file deletion issue is gone.

I just tried the new Keynote and hate it, so I'll be sticking with the older version for now.

Yep. It was gone with the last update.

I love the new Keynote. Unfortunately, our college network is not Mavericks compliant and I'll have to wait to upgrade my office Mac.

Gary