All my TMs stopped working.

Hello,

All my TMs stopped working. I receive the same error message (find it below), and none of the options given by your AI worked. What can I do? 

Error message in Trados Studio stating 'TM data is corrupt' with details: 'The translation memory D:DocumentsTRADUCAOMemorias de TraducaoSTUDIOSPLIT2_es-ES_pt-PT.sdltm could not be opened and has been disabled. Try repairing the TM data in a TM Repair application.' An orange warning triangle icon is displayed, and there is an 'OK' button.

TIA!



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[edited by: RWS Community AI at 11:20 PM (GMT 1) on 10 Jul 2025]
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    Excellent... thanks for updating us.  The .sdltm-journal file temporarily holds the original state of the database during a transaction.  If the write completes successfully, it’s deleted.  If the process crashes or is interrupted, it remains.  This could happen for various reasons:

    • Trados Studio crashes or is forcibly closed
    • There is an unexpected power loss or system shutdown
    • The disk becomes full or read-only during a write operation
    • Antivirus or backup software locks the file
    • A third-party process (like a script or SQLite browser) is interacting with the TM

    External drives (your D drive perhaps, or OneDrive, Dropbox etc.) can easily lead to .sdltm-journal files being left behind if the connection is unstable or interrupted.  It’s not inherently wrong to store TMs externally, but I'd strongly recommend you don't edit them, or work with them, directly from such drives to avoid data integrity risks.  Good for backups, but not dynamically as you work.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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