The file appears to be corrupted.

[pixelik]

Today, I wanted to continue working on a file again (v2.2), to my surprise, I received the message 'The file appears to be corrupted.' What can I do to still open the file?

 

ps: If I need to upload the file is there a place to upload it in private?

Edited October 16, 2023 by pixelik

[Hangman]

Hi @pixelik and welcome to the forums,

I'm really sorry to hear you're having issues with your file, is it a Publisher file where you're seeing the 'The file appears to be corrupted' message? Are you on Mac or Windows and which version of the OS are you running?

Someone in the moderation team will be able to provide a private Dropbox link for you which will allow you to upload your file though there's no guarantee they'll be able to recover it if it is indeed corrupt.

Do you have a recent backup of your file you can revert to if that should turn out to be the case?

[pixelik]

Thanks @Hangman,

It's an Affinity Designer file, on Windows 11 22H2, Affinity Designer version 2.2.0. No backup, unfortunately.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, pixelik said:

I wanted to continue working on a file again

Was the ADe file stored on your local system disk, or on an external storage place (cloud based storage, external USB drive, etc.)?

[pixelik]

External (pCloud), Tried the rewind function to find a previous version but I don't not what I did wrong as I can't find it. If I can't fix the file, we start over, with no hard feelings.

[v_kyr]

23 minutes ago, pixelik said:

External (pCloud), Tried the rewind function to find a previous version but I don't not what I did wrong as I can't find it. If I can't fix the file, we start over, with no hard feelings.

Maybe there is a revision accessable ...

• https://www.pcloud.com/de/features/file-versioning.html

... though Affinity files are known to have problems when working directly with/on them via external storage sources, thus it's always the best to just work with Affinity files on your internal main disk here and use any external storage spaces just for file backups and file store exchange.

[pixelik]

@v_kyr You are right, I had the same issue in Version 1 of AD, and I promised myself that I would only work from my local disk from now on. But unfortunately, I wasn't focused.

[NathanC]

Hi @pixelik,

If you could upload the corrupted document to the dropbox link below, I can then log it with the developers for further investigation into what caused the corruption (no guarantee the file can be fixed, however).

https://www.dropbox.com/request/A0rifugCCIKANxJiZeAS

Thanks

 

[pixelik]

@NathanC Thanks, I have uploaded it.

[Jacob Smullyan]

I was just bitten by this corrupted-file-on-cloud-storage bug, after using Publisher for several years without knowing about the recommendation to use locally stored files. I had been prompted to open a recovery file but foolishly declined as my previous run hadn't been aborted in any way and I didn't realize what the outcome would be.

I was able to recreate the work in this case, but this introduces serious workflow issues that will make me pause in fear every time I use the product. Lots of us rely on cloud files (Dropbox on Mac in this case) to sync and share work.

I'm curious — what's the challenge to making this work reliably? On a Mac, at least, it should be possible to detect whether a file is local or not, and if not, to have a safer (perhaps configurable) behavior (such as copying the file to disk and copying back on save) — or is that too naive a solution?

 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Jacob Smullyan said:

I'm curious — what's the challenge to making this work reliably?

As I (only partially!) understand it the issue is in Affinity not all of a file may be loaded on opening it, & throughout the editing process parts may be loaded & unloaded as needed. This is to increase performance & reduce how much in-memory data is required at any given time, reducing the need for paging stuff in & out of VM.

But beyond that I haven't a clue.