Try saving to a different folder in a different location.
Could be a system permissions problem.
My new Apple OS is giving me that kind of grief. WTF don’t they just add functionality and speed it up, not change existing modes?!
I once spent all day “saving” changes to a FLab file, only to discover that I wasn’t permitted to do that, so as soon as I closed the VFB, it reverted to where I had started.

Yup, sounds like a Lion issue. First thing I did was hunt down that infernal setting that "helpfully" tracks down your document from three days ago and opens that, instead of the one you just saved three minutes ago.

Nick (top one), do you save your stuff in your Documents folder, or somewhere else on your hard disk?

Probably unrelated, but occasionally FLab will refuse to generate an OTF for some arcane reason or another. The only indication that it wasn't generated is a text line in the diagnostic panel, which I often miss!

I just noticed the output panel was hidden behind the Opentype preview panel:

[WARNING] [internal] Feature block seen before any language system statement. You should place languagesystem statements before any feature definition [/Users/nickcooke/Library/Application Support/FontLab/Studio 5/Features/fontlab.fea 22]
ERROR: There was a problem while compiling OpenType font. Final .otf font is not saved. Please, check OpenType features definition for errors

Wouldn't it be great if OpenType features definition gave some clue as to where the problem lies?
And 'You should place languagesystem statements before any feature definition' never appeared before I updated to 5.1 and from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

'You should place languagesystem statements before any feature definition' never appeared before I updated to 5.1 and from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

This has to do with the fact that FLS 5.1 uses a more recent version of FDK than previous versions did. Snow Leopard isn't relevant here. However, this particular warning shouldn't prevent a font from being generated, so I'd focus your debugging efforts elsewhere.

André

The only useful clue in these kinds of messages is the line number following the path to fontlab.fea. Exporting the features and looking at that line in a text editor can sometimes help debugging, but in this case it seems to be in reference to the missing languagesystem warning rather than the fatal error. (Adding the statement languagesystem latn dflt; at the top of the global code area in the OpenType panel will placate the new compiler.)

See previous threads for more debugging ideas.

(Adding the statement languagesystem latn dflt; at the top of the global code area in the OpenType panel will placate the new compiler.)

How would I do that?

Place the line in the bottom pane of FontLab's OpenType panel.

I did that, but it was still not generating so I opened the vfb in the previous FL and it generated OK.

Thanks everybody.