Massive file size increase

Hi,

For some reason, every time I save a superlab file, the file size increases by a HUGE amount, even for a very small change. Now, each file is more than 300,000KB! Even if I don’t change anything, just “save as” and change the name, the file size gets massively bigger (to the tune of 10 times bigger). They are getting so big that it is incredibly time consuming to open or run them. Every other time I’ve programmed superlab files, even big ones, they’re never bigger than 30KB.

Any idea what is going on there? The only thing that I have changed recently is upgrading to the newest version of superlab.

Please advise!

Thanks,
Julia

Hi Julia,

This looks like a new bug in SuperLab and we have opened a bug report internally. It is being given a high priority. It seems related to trial variables but I’m not 100% sure yet. Meanwhile, you may want to revert to an earlier version.

Sorry about that.

Hisham.

RE: Massive file size increase

Hisham,

Thanks for getting back to me. Are there older versions of superlab available on the website? Also, is there any way to reduce the file size using the older versions? These files are getting so big that they are very difficult to run, if they run at all. Will the fix simply eliminate the problem of the files growing, or will it be able to make them smaller again? I’m mostly wondering if there is any chance I will have to rebuild these experiments from the ground up, which would be a huge hassle.

Keep me posted!
Thanks,
Julia

Hi Julia,

Older versions of SuperLab will not be able to open experiments created with newer versions. But I still went ahead and re-posted version 4.0.3 (for Windows) on our web site.

The issue with the file size increasing is being given a high priority.

Hisham.

Hi, Hisham,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I understand that you might not know this until you figure the bug out, but I am wondering whether I will need to rebuild the programs from scratch (using an older version), or whether the fix will make the existing files smaller.

Rebuilding them will take some time, so it would be really helpful to know whether that will be necessary.

Please let me know as soon as possible what your opinion is.

Many thanks!
Julia

The SuperLab 4.0.7 update fixes this issue and properly resizes the experiments to their appropriate sizes.

Hello. I’m having the exact problem described above, except that I’m having this problem even with the latest version of Superlab (4.0.7). I’m in urgent need to fix it, so if anyone has any other tips, please let me know, thank you!..

The problem: Every time I save even the smallest change in my experiment, my file size multiplies. The file is now so big that I am unable to run it at all. It just times out. I’m running this on Windows XP, and have had no problems running this experiment on this computer in the past. Thanks!

Correction: It’s not that I’m having the file size multiplication problem on 4.0.7. I think what is happening is that the file size using the previous version became so large that it won’t open in my new version.

problem solved

Problem solved, thanks to Stacie. Not only did I have to download the latest version of Superlab, I also had to run the backup instead of the main file. Fortunately, it seems that Superlab makes backups frequently, so it appears that I haven’t lost any changes. Now the experiment runs perfectly at it’s optimal size. Thanks, Stacie.