Failed to open file / The file appears to be corrupted

[Guitarzan]

Hello,

I’m currently working on my first book, and so far, Publisher has been a dream to work with. However, since the most recent update (2.5.7), I’ve encountered an issue: whenever I save a new version with my changes and attempt to reopen it, I receive the attached error message.

I have the file backed up as a PDF, but starting from scratch is not an option at this stage. I would greatly appreciate any assistance you could provide to help resolve this issue.

Thank you in advance for your time and support.

Best regards,
Bryan

 

Edited December 15, 2024 by Guitarzan

[MikeTO]

Hi @Guitarzan and welcome to the forums. Your screenshot failed to upload so you should try that again.

I don't know what error you're receiving, but two common workarounds are:

• If there are linked resources, make them unavailable to Publisher before opening the file by renaming the folder containing them, or the resources themselves. Doing this might allow the document to open.
• You can try creating a new document and then choosing Document > Add Pages from File to add the corrupted document's pages to the new document.

Good luck

[Guitarzan]

I just tried to open a previous version from 12/8, and get an entirely different message.

[Guitarzan]

8 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Hi @Guitarzan and welcome to the forums. Your screenshot failed to upload so you should try that again.

I don't know what error you're receiving, but two common workarounds are:

• If there are linked resources, make them unavailable to Publisher before opening the file by renaming the folder containing them, or the resources themselves. Doing this might allow the document to open.
• You can try creating a new document and then choosing Document > Add Pages from File to add the corrupted document's pages to the new document.

Good luck

Thanks Mike, I saw these suggestions on another thread and tried both of these options with no luck.

[MikeTO]

Were you able to save the file under a new name as suggested in the prompt?

There are known issues saving to pcloud from Affinity.

[Guitarzan]

29 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Were you able to save the file under a new name as suggested in the prompt?

There are known issues saving to pcloud from Affinity.

Yes, but that turned out to be the "failed to open" message I originally posted. I've been using pCloud for over a year without any issues with my applications. The problem only started occurring after I updated Publisher.

Fortunately, I was able to import the latest PDF into Publisher and make my changes. However, if I hadn’t exported the PDF beforehand, I would have had to start from scratch.

May I ask where the thread or post is relating to pCloud?

[MikeTO]

14 minutes ago, Guitarzan said:

Yes, but that turned out to be the "failed to open" message I originally posted. I've been using pCloud for over a year without any issues with my applications. The problem only started occurring after I updated Publisher.

Fortunately, I was able to import the latest PDF into Publisher and make my changes. However, if I hadn’t exported the PDF beforehand, I would have had to start from scratch.

May I ask where the thread or post is relating to pCloud?

There are lots of threads here that mention pCloud but it's not just pCloud - Serif recommends not saving to or opening from a cloud drive. It's the same with iCloud.

Notwithstanding the advice not to use a cloud drive, a lot of us including me use them anyway. But we've learned to back up our work frequently in case of a corrupted file like this. I back up my work at the end of each day, and just before and after making large changes.

Here are some general questions from Serif when you get an error like this:

 

[Guitarzan]

1 minute ago, MikeTO said:

There are lots of threads here that mention pCloud but it's not just pCloud - Serif recommends not saving to or opening from a cloud drive. It's the same with iCloud.

Notwithstanding the advice not to use a cloud drive, a lot of us including me use them anyway. But we've learned to back up our work frequently in case of a corrupted file like this. I back up my work at the end of each day, and just before and after making large changes.

Here are some general questions from Serif when you get an error like this:

 

Thanks for the good advice, Mike. It's most appreciated!

[Komatös]

The problem with saving to cloud services is that the files to be saved may not be completely written to the cloud before the programs are closed.
Other sources of error can be the settings in the cloud client software.

[Guitarzan]

22 hours ago, Komatös said:

The problem with saving to cloud services is that the files to be saved may not be completely written to the cloud before the programs are closed.
Other sources of error can be the settings in the cloud client software.

I never thought about that! Thanks so much for the post.