I installed Inkscape (0.48.2) this morning and loaded up a couple of eps files I saved from MATLAB, edited them fine and saved them as both eps and svg. However a few hours later when I came to try and edit another eps file, also saved from MATLAB, Inkscape doesn't even have the option to view eps files from either the open or import menus and if I try to open one from viewing all file types it errors saying "Failed to load the requested file [file path]"...

Any particular reason it should just stop working?!

Thanks

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

I've seen the "Failed to load...." error, for a few different reasons. If the file you're trying to load is huge; or if you've moved it, but trying to open from a shortcut; or the file is corrupt, or contains content that Inkscape doesn't support; ..... and probably a couple more circumstances could trigger it (that I don't know about). Did you happen to move all the EPS files in the meantime, since earlier today?

What seems strange to me, is that the EPS option has disappeared from Open dialog. What happens if you locate the file in a file manager, and use right-click > Open with > Inkscape? Any luck with that routine?

brynn wrote:
Welcome to InkscapeForum!

I've seen the "Failed to load...." error, for a few different reasons. If the file you're trying to load is huge; or if you've moved it, but trying to open from a shortcut; or the file is corrupt, or contains content that Inkscape doesn't support; ..... and probably a couple more circumstances could trigger it (that I don't know about). Did you happen to move all the EPS files in the meantime, since earlier today?

What seems strange to me, is that the EPS option has disappeared from Open dialog. What happens if you locate the file in a file manager, and use right-click > Open with > Inkscape? Any luck with that routine?

All the files are in the same folders.

Right clicking and using open with>Inkscape gives the same error. The odd thing is that .eps format has disappeared from the open dialog but not from the save as... I can import any other image (just tested this using a .tiff), save it as a .eps and it seems to work fine.

Yes, that seems strange to me as well.

You did not happen to save these EPS images in a root directory (such as C:\\) or a flash drive, did you? I can't really explain how I'm making this connection, but I wonder if it could be related to another known bug.

Also, this is the stable EXE release, and not the 7z version, correct?

brynn wrote:Yes, that seems strange to me as well.

You did not happen to save these EPS images in a root directory (such as C:\\) or a flash drive, did you? I can't really explain how I'm making this connection, but I wonder if it could be related to another known bug.

Also, this is the stable EXE release, and not the 7z version, correct?

They're saved in a folder on my desktop. Also used the stable 0.48.2 release.

One thing I need to try is installing that ghost program and adding that directory to the path thing in windows (not 100% on the method), I never did it to begin with as it just worked!

I think you're talking about Ghostscript, and Inkscape automatically installs it. So unless it somehow got deleted, it should still be there. Actually I think there might be a way to find out where the problem is happening. Let's see if I can find what I'm thinking of.... Ok, here it is. Check out the first message in this (long) thread. It tells you how to find an error log, which should tell you what's missing. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=820

brynn wrote:I think you're talking about Ghostscript, and Inkscape automatically installs it. (…)

The official packages of Inkscape for Windows and Mac OS X do not include (nor automatically install) Ghostscript. This is up to the user if he/she has a need to open PS/EPS files.


Note: Ghostscript is only required to open PS/EPS files - saving as PS/EPS does not require Ghostscript (it is handled internally by Inkscape).

brynn wrote:I think you're talking about Ghostscript, and Inkscape automatically installs it. So unless it somehow got deleted, it should still be there. Actually I think there might be a way to find out where the problem is happening. Let's see if I can find what I'm thinking of.... Ok, here it is. Check out the first message in this (long) thread. It tells you how to find an error log, which should tell you what's missing. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=820

Ok thanks, here are the contents of my error file:


Looks like the eps import failed because of an executable and ps2pdf. Is this something Ghostscript comes with?

~suv wrote:

brynn wrote:I think you're talking about Ghostscript, and Inkscape automatically installs it. (…)

The official packages of Inkscape for Windows and Mac OS X do not include (nor automatically install) Ghostscript. This is up to the user if he/she has a need to open PS/EPS files.


Note: Ghostscript is only required to open PS/EPS files - saving as PS/EPS does not require Ghostscript (it is handled internally by Inkscape).

Oh ok, so I do need to install Ghostscript and add that path to the windows system file? Seems odd that it worked for a few hours immediately after install but then stopped!

Update:
Making some progress! I installed Ghostscript and added ";C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.05\lib" to that PATH variable (wasn't sure if it was lib or bin I needed to add as I found two conflicting guides) and Inkscape now sees eps files again!

However when I try and open one I now get an error message saying:

"Inkscape has received additional data from the script executed. The script did not return an error, but this may indicate the results will not be as expected."

and

"Error reading temporary file: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'c:\\users\\rich\\appdata\\local\\temp\\tmpxkhtxm.svg'"

When I click ok on that I get the same error I got before I installed Ghostscript saying "Failed to load the requested file C:\Users\Rich\Desktop\Dropbox\Dropbox\Graphs\Para_Plane\Plane_red_intercept.eps"

Is this because I put the lib directory of Ghostscript not the bin one?

Update 2:
Ok, added the \bin directory as well as the \lib one and now Inkscape loads and/or imports the eps but takes it's time doing it (saying it's stopped responding whilst it's doing so) and then runs horrendously slowly when the eps is imported. Just moving the image about takes a few seconds, even with the precision at 2.0 (with PDF fonts replaced and images embedded). Other tools work fine though, it just seems like the program can't cope with the imported eps. I have tried this with a few eps files and it seems to be the more complex the eps the slower the program runs, however it worked perfectly with any eps before it stopped working. Could it be the version of Ghostscript I'm using (9.05)? I read that newer versions can actually be a bit worse...

Thanks