"Failed to open file - The file appears to be truncated (shorter than expected)". Please help!

[Louis V]

Hi,

I have only been using the Affinity Designer trial version for a few days and have been enjoying every minute of it but this morning I went to open a file that I have spent MANY hours on only to find an error message telling me the file can't be opened!

I am using Windows 7 Enterprise (Service Pack 1) 64-bit OS
The file was saved to a FAT32  Samsung stick that never gets removed

Let me know if anymore information is required.

I don't really know what to do. Please can someone help. As you can imagine, I really do not want to lose all the work I have put in to this.

Many thanks

[Leigh]

Welcome to the forum Louis V

Sorry to hear that you're unable to open your file. Is it possible to upload a copy of the file to our dropbox account? I will then be able to look into this further for you.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/bKHllcRjFFoNUqGX6NeC

[Louis V]

Hi Leigh,

Thanks for your response. Just uploaded now 👍

[Leigh]

Thanks. Have passed the file to our devs to take a look. When I have an update, I will let you know 👍

[Louis V]

Great stuff! Thank you so much. I hope it's salvageable.

Any idea of the usual reasons for a file being truncated in Affinity ?

[Leigh]

Unfortunately, our developers have been unable to recover your file, sorry. Do you have any backups?

It could have been caused by a number of things when saving to a USB drive. Might be worth saving to your local hdd first.

[Louis V]

Good morning, Leigh

Thanks for getting back to me. Honestly I assumed I would never get my many hours of work back. I'm not sure how your devs were going to recover my file but some insight would be helpful.

I do not have a backup. I would have used that if so. I regularly save all of my other work to drives other than my (C:) drive and have no issue. This goes for any other graphics software - no problems whatsoever. Only time I've had a problem is with Affinity Designer. 

Could you let me know what some of the many causes saving to USB are? This is the only corrupted file I've ever had saving to any drive. How would saving the file to my (C:) drive first have helped?

Answers to these questions may help other users.

I am sincere in my questioning despite it possibly reading otherwise.

I appreciate yours and your colleagues time and help 

 

Despite this hiccup I'm am loving this software. It's bloomin awesome!
 

[Leigh]

No worries, just wish I had better news for you.

Our devs don't recommend using a USB drive as you're primary storage. Saving locally is always recommended because it's going to be faster to write data locally than to a USB drive, especially with larger files. Writing data at a slower rate has the potential to cause write errors leading to corrupted documents. We would suggest that you save locally and often and have a backup solution in place to copy the files to USB drive at certain intervals. I personally use the 3-2-1 backup rule. 3 copies of data, 2 copies stored locally (NAS, USB) and 1 copy backed up to the cloud.

Hope that helps.

[Louis V]

Sounds like a plan.

I save often and sometimes 2 copies of work to different drives if it's something I really don't want to lose and of course have been doing so with my subsequent Affinity work after that loss  😄
I tend not to save to my main drive but that's just due to storage space (it's that bad).

It's sad that I lost the file but I'm creating more and more work with the software which is helping bury my loss  😂

You and your colleagues have been a great help and I really appreciate the time you've all spent on me.

Stay safe, guys, and keep making awesome software.

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, Leigh said:

Saving locally is always recommended because it's going to be faster to write data locally than to a USB drive, especially with larger files.

If you mean for example a USB 3 or Thunderbolt connected external HDD or SSD, the speed difference should not be significant -- in fact on Macs with built-in slower HDDs (like 5400 rpm ones) & fast external HDDs or SSDs, the latter may be faster for typical file accesses.

Of course, Affinity may not access files in typical ways, which I think is why editing a locally stored copy is recommended. Regardless, I think there should be a warning built into the Affinity apps about trying to edit documents not locally stored so users do not get caught out by this. 

[Leigh]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

If you mean for example a USB 3 or Thunderbolt connected external HDD or SSD, the speed difference should not be significant -- in fact on Macs with built-in slower HDDs (like 5400 rpm ones) & fast external HDDs or SSDs, the latter may be faster for typical file accesses.

I think that's the issue and why the devs recommend saving locally. There are so many different types of USB drives available, all of which can be connected to the machine in different ways.

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

Of course, Affinity may not access files in typical ways, which I think is why editing a locally stored copy is recommended. Regardless, I think there should be a warning built into the Affinity apps about trying to edit documents not locally stored so users do not get caught out by this. 

I will pass the suggestion to the devs 👍

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, Leigh said:

I think that's the issue and why the devs recommend saving locally. There are so many different types of USB drives available, all of which can be connected to the machine in different ways.

True. But I think that a fast HDD or a still faster SSD directly connected via a USB 3 interface should work just as well as the built-in startup drive, if for no other reason than if I boot my Mac from one of my 7200 rpm HDDs connected via a USB 3 interface instead of its built-in drive, that works without any issues.

[SafaQ]

 

On 5/28/2020 at 1:37 AM, Leigh said:

Welcome to the forum Louis V

Sorry to hear that you're unable to open your file. Is it possible to upload a copy of the file to our dropbox account? I will then be able to look into this further for you.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/bKHllcRjFFoNUqGX6NeC

 

On 6/3/2020 at 7:06 AM, Leigh said:

No worries, just wish I had better news for you.

Our devs don't recommend using a USB drive as you're primary storage. Saving locally is always recommended because it's going to be faster to write data locally than to a USB drive, especially with larger files. Writing data at a slower rate has the potential to cause write errors leading to corrupted documents. We would suggest that you save locally and often and have a backup solution in place to copy the files to USB drive at certain intervals. I personally use the 3-2-1 backup rule. 3 copies of data, 2 copies stored locally (NAS, USB) and 1 copy backed up to the cloud.

Hope that helps.

 

 

Leigh,

The very same thing just happened to me! I just uploaded my file to your dropbox! DO you think you can see if I have the same problem?

 

-Safa

[Leigh]

11 hours ago, SafaQ said:

Leigh,

The very same thing just happened to me! I just uploaded my file to your dropbox! DO you think you can see if I have the same problem?

-Safa

Thanks for uploading your file. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to recover your Affinity document using the methods we would normally use to recover these kinds of documents. Do you have a backup that you can revert to? Where was this file stored and saved to?

[SafaQ]

it was on a usb  I don't know how to find a backup

 

 

[Leigh]

23 hours ago, SafaQ said:

it was on a usb  I don't know how to find a backup

Thanks for the information. You will only have backups available if you have an app installed that regularly backs up your files. It's not a feature that our apps have, sorry.

As stated above in a previous reply, our devs do not recommend using a USB drive as your primary storage. Saving locally is always recommended because it's going to be faster to write data locally than to a USB drive, especially with larger files. Writing data at a slower rate has the potential to cause write errors leading to corrupted documents. We would suggest that you save locally and often and have a backup solution in place to copy the files to USB drive at certain intervals.

I will log your file with our developers to see if they can recover it but I can't give any ETA for when that will be, sorry.

Hope that helps.

[SafaQur]

1 hour ago, Leigh said:

Thanks for the information. You will only have backups available if you have an app installed that regularly backs up your files. It's not a feature that our apps have, sorry.

As stated above in a previous reply, our devs do not recommend using a USB drive as your primary storage. Saving locally is always recommended because it's going to be faster to write data locally than to a USB drive, especially with larger files. Writing data at a slower rate has the potential to cause write errors leading to corrupted documents. We would suggest that you save locally and often and have a backup solution in place to copy the files to USB drive at certain intervals.

I will log your file with our developers to see if they can recover it but I can't give any ETA for when that will be, sorry.

Hope that helps.

Awww okay….. let me know if there is any hope!💖

[Jeffcreativo]

Hi, I have had this problem with a fairly large file. It is a 130 page catalog. It tells me that the file is truncated (it is shorter than expected).
I've been working on it for months. Could you check it out please.

At least get a part of it back if you could... Please could I send you the file?

Edited December 29, 2021 by Jeffcreativo

[Leigh]

On 12/29/2021 at 10:32 AM, Jeffcreativo said:

Hi, I have had this problem with a fairly large file. It is a 130 page catalog. It tells me that the file is truncated (it is shorter than expected).
I've been working on it for months. Could you check it out please.

At least get a part of it back if you could... Please could I send you the file?

Sorry to hear this. Feel free to send it to me and we can see what's possible. Do you have any backups? Where was the file saved to?