size of .wbs file increased greatly

[Evgeny]

Hello everybody
I have WWB 20.3.1 installed on virtual machine VMware fusion pro 13.6.3,Windows 11, Mac OS Tahoe, mac mini M4 (24/512)
System folder is correct C:\Users\user\Documents\WYSIWYG Web Builder
WWB worked very fast and fine.
But I noticed a serious problem for me. My web project is not big, about 10 pages. And main project file .wbs always was with size about 8-12 Mb.
I made 2 new two pages (copy-paste pages and made some changes)
Noticed that size of .wbs file became 1,9 Gb (thousand times larger). And of cause my mac became out of memory. The other issue that can not save my project (error: access denied because the application does not have enough permissions, or another application has the file open and locked)
May be somebody met such problem?
I could not find info on the forum.
And my very long talk with ChatGPT about this gave no good results
(want to note that I worked before with WWB more than 10 years on windows comp without problems)

[BaconFries]

The other issue that can not save my project (error: access denied because the application does not have enough permissions, or another application has the file open and locked)
May be somebody met such problem?
I could not find info on the forum.

I can't explain the file size increase but your second issue has been asked and replied to many times...

A workaround for this is to simply rename the project temporarily, save, reopen, save again as the original name and reopen again and continue working on the project.

[Pablo]

This is not a bug, it is related to how Windows handles compound storage.

Please see this related FAQ:
viewtopic.php?t=47748

[Evgeny]

Thank you for your replies.
I tried your advises but did not get good results. My .wbs file size is still 1,9 Gb. May be the reason is that i use WWB with software combination Win11 pro arm+VMware fusion+ MAcOs Tahoe 26.01 ?
Is there any possibility to open the file and check what is inside?

[Pablo]

The file storage is handles by the system (Windows), it is not something the software itself does.
But I do not think It should not be different on a different system. otherwise many other apps would have the same issue.
Also, I could not found any known issues about this on Google.

If you need further assistance then I need to know the exact steps to reproduce this behavior.
Although, I do not have Win11 pro arm+VMware fusion+ MAcOs Tahoe 26.01 myself.

Do you have the same problem with a new project?

[Evgeny]

I really have 2 more projects. But honestly right now I am afraid to open them. I hope to solve my case with the problem huge .wbs file first and than to experiment.
I tried to open and save other small project, no problem happened. Size is the same (small) and saving without warnings and restricts.

[Pablo]

Step 1
Create a new project

Step 2
Save the file

Does this have the same problem?

If not, then what is specific about your projects that may be causing this behavior?

[Evgeny]

Guys, I’ve solved my problem. Honestly, it was long and tedious.
Here’s the step-by-step:
I copied the project to C:\Users\Documents\ and started experimenting there.
Began deleting pages one by one. Only after deleting the main page index.html did the project size instantly drop to a normal level. Great!
I focused only on the main page, index. I started removing layers one by one (layoutgrids and Flexcontainers). Only after deleting the very top layer did the page size shrink to normal.
I moved the contents of the “bad” layer elsewhere, deleted that layer, created a new identical one, and moved the content back into the new layer. That’s it!
Everything went back to normal—the whole project is now 7 MB (a normal size).
Conclusion: the very top layer of the index page was hiding 1.9 GB of some kind of junk. No idea where it came from.
I’m happy. All’s well that ends well.
Thanks!

[Evgeny]

Sometimes we “optimize” life just like an old project:
we clear the cache, remove the junk, keep only what matters.
And suddenly everything starts running lighter, faster, quieter.
Not because we’ve become someone else,
but because inside, there’s finally room for what’s real.