[GIS] Opening selected ArcMap document failed

arcgis-desktoparcmapmxd

Has anyone come across this error when opening up a MXD file?

Opening the selected ArcMap document failed.

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ArcMap had frozen on me right before this, even though no processes were in the middle of running – clicking anywhere triggered no response other than that super annoying "ding!". I was able to close the program by right clicking in the task bar and selecting close, at which point I was asked to save the results of the editing session I was in and also save the MXD file. I did both. And now it can't be opened up.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Best Answer

You really are fairly stuck here. You may be able to recover your map document using the MXD Doctor tool:

MXD Doctor is a stand-alone application provided with ArcGIS: (Start>All Programs>ArcGIS>Desktop Tools>MXD Doctor) It provides functionality to analyze broken .mxd files. Depending on the analysis, entities contained in the broken .mxd file can be copied from the broken file into a new or existing .mxd file.

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