object reference not set to an instance of an object

Question

After merging a couple of documents I tried to open the merged file.I couldn't open the file and received the message 'object reference not set to an instance of an object'. I tried the solution as suggested by changing the folder names (in three folders names needed changing). I've changed all folder names by adding '_old' to it. Then I tried opening the file in Studio again, but unfortunately it still could not be opened. Any other suggestions to resolve this issue?

Jerzy Czopik · Accepted Answer

As you say you can't open the merged document, so it seems you did not translate anything there. 
In that case simply create a new project without merging the files and open them together for translation (using virtual merge - available from Studio 2014 onwards).

Paul · Answer

Hi Iris, 
 
The solution from jerzy seems sensible but if you wanted the merged file for some other purpose other then you just handling the translation yourself then I guess you'd still like to get to the bottom of this one. Can you advise what version of Studio you are using, and can you share the project you created perhaps? 
 
Regards

Paul · Answer

Thanks Iris, can you send me the source file too in case this these are part of the problem here? 
 
Regards 
 
Paul 
pfilkin@sdl.com

Paul · Answer

Dear Joey, 
 Thank you. I just wanted to close this off with a quick explanation of the problem here so it's useful for others perhaps. 
 The merged file that was being opened was a file created after merging the split SDLXLIFF files created with the Split n Merge App. So this thread is not about merging files in Studio. 
 This is a difficult one to find the source of the problem for the following reasons at least: 
 
 The Split n Merge app is old and depending on the original source filetype there could have been changes in the filetype settings that have now introduced a problem where there wasn't one before. 
 The split files could have been handled in tools other than Studio and possibly making small changes to the translated SDLXLIFF which the Split n Merge app is not expecting, so it merges them incorrectly. 
 The split files might contain comments, tracked changes, merged segments... and possibly other things that have changed since the app was developed so these might also cause a problem 
 One, or more, of the SDLXLIFF files might have become corrupted in transit 
 
 There are probably other changes too, but this is quite a tricky problem to nail down. The solution Joey Veldkamp mentioned is probably the best one, to pretranslate the original source from a TM. I did the same thing to resolve this, but I converted the merged SDLXIFF to TMX using the Sdlxliff2Tmx app on the OpenExchange as this isn't so fussy as tools using the underlying Studio api. 
 So I don't have a good anwer for this, only a suggest approach which is to always make sure you have the TM for the translations and then you can pretranslate the original file. 
 Regards

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object reference not set to an instance of an object