"The File Type Is Not Supported"

[MrBrock]

I'm opening an AFPUB file on my computer that I'veII previously opened many times.  Suddenly, I'm getting the error "The file type is not supported."

I've never seen this error before.  I've tried copying the file and opening that version instead, same error.

The file type looks fine when I go into file settings (attached)

Any ideas?

Edited November 25, 2024 by MrBrock
Added photo

[AlainP]

I had the same problem last week. This is a file that had been created about 6 months earlier with the retail version of Publisher. Publisher Ver 2.5.5 and beta 2.6 displayed the same error message.

I had a backup on an external drive and this file opened fine. What I can't understand is that in this local folder I have 12 files, all created at the same time, and only two of them couldn't be opened. At least the backup worked fine..

The only clue I can think of is that those files had been created on a Windows PC (I think) and I was opening them on a Mac. But why only two out of twelve...

 

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, MrBrock said:

Any ideas?

Try search in previous posts:

https://www.google.com/search?q=The+file+type+is+not+supported+site:forum.affinity.serif.com

[AlainP]

I did search just to see that this problem has last for at least two years and still not fixed. And that search, with so many pages, makes me scared a little more!

Why two out of twelve files, created the same day, don't open from a local drive. And in almost 2025, software that can't work correctly with files in the cloud does not make me trust it very much.

This is the kind of problem that should  have been fixed for good a while ago, before adding bells and whistles.

[Pšenda]

14 minutes ago, AlainP said:

I did search just to see that this problem has last for at least two years and still not fixed.

This problem will definitely last much longer.

 

In my opinion, in the case of these corrupted files, there is always some problem of loss of control and access to the file, caused either by an external disk that goes to sleep, for example, or by cloud storage on a local disk where Affinity is in conflict with the cloud driver, or by a local disk error (a completely exceptional case that I have noted on the forum). In my opinion, these problems are related to the inappropriate use of the file, which is not used purely to store the design, but also as a form of working cache (that is why the files are so huge, because they also store redundant in-progress data to speed up work and display). To solve the problems, this would have to be reworked (I kind of hoped that this would happen when switching from V1 to V2, but it did not happen - and therefore numerous file corruptions remained).

[iBacio]

I have more-or-less a similar issue on my Mac when I do something like that: CMD+S (to save file) and immediately CMD+Q (to close the program).
In such case, I belive AF Publisher closes the app _before_ fully saving it on disk. It should wait for saving to be finished, but it does not.

My solution is that now, I save, wait some time and then close the program.

I am not sure if that is in any way related to your problem, but the end effect is quite similar.

[MrBrock]

8 hours ago, Pšenda said:

This problem will definitely last much longer.

 

In my opinion, in the case of these corrupted files, there is always some problem of loss of control and access to the file, caused either by an external disk that goes to sleep, for example, or by cloud storage on a local disk where Affinity is in conflict with the cloud driver, or by a local disk error (a completely exceptional case that I have noted on the forum). In my opinion, these problems are related to the inappropriate use of the file, which is not used purely to store the design, but also as a form of working cache (that is why the files are so huge, because they also store redundant in-progress data to speed up work and display). To solve the problems, this would have to be reworked (I kind of hoped that this would happen when switching from V1 to V2, but it did not happen - and therefore numerous file corruptions remained).

I agree, I seem to have more issues with files that are synced with cloud drives (which mine are).  But which is riskier, only storing files on local drives, or using cloud drives with a risk of the software failing?  It's clearly a failure of the software to not be able to be reliably synced with cloud.  Very frustrating.