HELP! "The file appears to be truncated (shorter than expected)"

[Magnum]

I love Affinity Photo...until I could not open a file I have spent untold HOURS creating, saving to a reliable external hard drive. When I try to open it, I get the following message: "The file appears to be truncated (shorter than expected)". The file in its current state is 84.9 mb, so there is data there, but Affinity cannot open it. I tried attaching but got the message 

Sorry, an unknown server error occurred when uploading this file.

(Error code: -200)

Is there any way to recover this...??

TonyMikey__ASSEMBLED.afphoto TonyMikey__ASSEMBLED.afphoto

[EmT]

Hi @Magnum 

Welcome to the forum. 

Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to recover your Affinity document using the methods we would normally use to recover these kinds of documents. We can only suggest that you revert to a backup of the document or if your document is synced to cloud storage, it may have a File History feature that should allow you to download a previous version of the file. 

We would like some additional information to see if we can work out the cause of the problem and stop it happening in future. To assist this process, please can you also tell us the following: 

1. Which Operating System are you using? 

2. Which version of Affinity did the file last get saved in? 

3. What drive type was the file last saved to (select more than one if needed)? 

Local disk  

USB disk/Flash disk 

Google Drive folder 

OneDrive folder 

iCloud folder  

Dropbox folder 

Network location 

Other (please specify)  

 

4. Any other information you think would help us try to find the problem 

 

Once you supply the additional information, we can log this with our developers to see if they can figure out what originally caused the issue and if the problem can be avoided in a future update.

[Magnum]

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, version 21H2, OS build 19044.1766
Affinity Photo Version: 1.10.5.1342
Drive: WD 4TB My Passport Portable External Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 Compatible, 256-bit AES hardware encryption
Other information: Corrupted file is 84.9 MB, in .afphoto format, with no previous versions

SOMEthing is taking up 84.8MB of space in this file. There is data there. How can I extract it? I have spent huge amounts of time on this project; the prospect of having to start all over is very disheartening. I really love this program as a replacement for Photoshop (I loathe Adobe).

If I cannot recover this file, how do I prevent this from happening again? I see on the forums this error message has happened to numerous people. What's being done about it? What steps can I take to protect my projects from being destroyed? Can you advise?

EDIT: Here is a Dropbox link to the file. Can you see if you can access it?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ul14x0m3d0q6wal/TonyMikey__ASSEMBLED.afphoto?dl=0

Edited June 29, 2022 by Magnum
Added Dropbox link to corrupted file

[EmT]

Thank you for the additional information, Unfortunately we cannot recover that data, however I have now logged this issue with the developers to see if they can figure out the cause. 

Going forward, saving and working from local disk can help prevent issues arising in the case of disconnects from the External drive. The file can then be copied over afterwards meaning you'll also have a back-up of the file. 

 

[PaulEC]

46 minutes ago, Magnum said:

how do I prevent this from happening again?

For any work which is remotely important or irreplaceable:

1: Always work on a copy of your file. Don't work on original files. Always keep backups somewhere safe. For really important files, keep several copies in different locations.

2: If you're doing a lot of editing, or other work on a file, save incremental backups regularly, or at least at major stages of the job. (Don't just keep overwriting the same file.)

3: Don't save directly to any external drives (especially not to network drives,) save to a local drive and check the file is OK, before closing the app. (Once you know the file is OK you can get rid of interim backups if you want to save space, but always keep a backup of the original file as well as the edited version.) When you copy files to an external drive for archiving, check they are OK before deleting the original.

(Yes, it might seem like a lot of extra work, but it's a lot less work than having to start from scratch!)

[Magnum]

Thanks PaulEC, that does indeed seem like a lot of work, with no apparent guarantee it would happen again. Although I despise Adobe and their subscription model, I never had this issue with Photoshop. Saving was easy-peasy. I have no answers on what exactly caused this, so I can avoid it happening in the future, and it doesn't appear that the techs at Affinity know what's causing it either, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. 😒😖

 

It looks like what I'll have to do is save a version of each step of my project at every single stage of development: Complete one section, save as a TIFF file. Work on the next section, save as a TIFF file, and so on. That way, if this happens again I can go back to the most recently completed version. I just wish Affinity would get it together and find a fix for this. I'm not the only person this is happening to, apparently. 🤬

 

Just a shot in the dark, but do you know of any way to retrieve the work from a truncated file? As I said, SOMEthing is taking up 84.8MB of space in this file. There is data there.

[Ron P.]

Considering the situation, you might try looking for file recovery/repair apps.

Here's an on-line service for recovering damaged files.

https://onlinefile.repair/en

[walt.farrell]

11 hours ago, Ron P. said:

Considering the situation, you might try looking for file recovery/repair apps.

Here's an on-line service for recovering damaged files.

https://onlinefile.repair/en

Given that the file format of Affinity files is undocumented, I wouldn't have great hopes that anyone but Serif would be able to recover it. And if their tools/methods won't work, it's doubtful that anyone else's will.

[Pšenda]

23 hours ago, PaulEC said:

Don't save directly to any external drives (especially not to network drives,) save to a local drive

... for sure I will add - local disk and personal folders (not system folders, which can be problematic due to permission restrictions). Also not folders managed by various cloud services (OneDrive, Dropbox), which can interfere with files in a given directory, or create duplicates.

[Magnum]

Welp, I've given up trying to salvage all the hours I spent on this project. Thanks a HEAP, Affinity. 🤬 😡

So now, what I'll have to do is start all over again, taking the following precautions: after each step of the creation process on this project, save both a TIFF file and an Affinity file in both my PC's drive and then copy it over to my external hard drive. After each step.

Since Affinity can't tell me why this happened, or how to prevent it from happening in the future (again, thanks a HEAP, Affinity. 🤬), it seems like this is what I'll have to do. Other software programs have figured out how to autosave, create autosave backups, and enable file recovery, but not Affinity.

 

[Huei]

I have the same problem here. As I opened the designer files which I usually store on google drive. It showed the same message. Fortunately the google drive has the backups. I would like to know if the problems could be solved in the future updates?

[EmT]

Hi @Huei

Please could you make a new thread about your issue in the relevant bug section and someone from Tech Support will be able to assist you with it.