Hello everyone,

I'm new on this forum and as i'm Dutch, my English will not be "high quality".

I've got a question regarding a .svg file that i'm working on in Inkscape ( version 0.48.1, if i'm correct)
I was working on a big drawing (wich was saved as a .svg file) when my computer crashed. When I started the computer again, and started Inkscape, I tried to open my file.
Then I got a message, something like: 'Failed to load document..............'. I opened the file in Safari, where I got the folowing message:
error on line 5400 at column 16976: AttValue: ' expected.

I don't know what to do at this point. Mayby some of you know what to do now. I've worked on the drawing for over two months now, so it would be devistating if it got lost.

Kind regards,

Maarten

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

So when you try to open the file, you're opening Inkscape first, then using the File menu > Open (or Open button)? Have you tried to access the file from your file manager? Then right-click and Open with Inkscape? I'm thinking possibly in the crash, Inkscape's usual path to the file got scrambled. But you might be able to open it directly from the file manager.

As far as the error message, I'm afraid I don't know anything about it. Maybe someone else can sort that out if you still can't open it?

thanks Brynn!

I have tried to open it with my file manager, but that won't work either. I also tried to remove Inkscape from the computer and download it again, then open it, but I got the same message.
I think it has become a corrupt file and something is wrong in the script of the document?

Thanks allot,

Maarten

Ah, that's too bad. I agree now, that it sounds like the file might be corrupt.

Depending on which version of Inkscape you were using, there might have been an automatic backup somewhere. You've probably already looked for that, though?

Hhhhm, I wonder if there is some way to open up the XML, even though the image won't open....like open it with Notepad or some text editor? "AttValue ' expected" doesn't sound so terrible to me, but you have to understand that I know next to nothing about XML. Actually this error might not even be in the XML code, for all I know . But I have heard of people altering code of the image in a text editor.

I wonder if you would be able to learn any more about it by attempting to open with another graphics program, like The GIMP, for example....or I'm not sure if Irfanview can open SVG format? Another wild thought -- would there be anything to gain by sharing the file with us? I certainly am not qualified to troubleshoot something like this, but maybe others are?

Well, hopefully someone else will join the discussion here, who knows what you can do to save the file

EDIT
Hey, that fingers crossed smiley must be a good luck charm, because look, ~suv posted 2 minutes after me -- she's such an expert, you're in good hands now!

wingtippy wrote:I was working on a big drawing (wich was saved as a .svg file) when my computer crashed. When I started the computer again, and started Inkscape, I tried to open my file.
Then I got a message, something like: 'Failed to load document..............'. I opened the file in Safari, where I got the folowing message:
error on line 5400 at column 16976: AttValue: ' expected.

Did you computer crash just when you had been saving the document in Inkscape [1]? To me it seems that the file got corrupted due to the system crash (external to Inkscape), and most likely only contains a part of the original data (the part that got saved before the system crashed), or the system crash caused corruption of files on your disk.

Without having access to the file (and based on my experience with inspecting and partially restoring other corrupt SVG files shared with similar questions), my guess is that you'll best use your latest version you have available in your backup system (if working for two months on the same file, you certainly did some kind of backup of your system and user files during that period?). OTOH you could attach the file here (or make it otherwise available online, externally, and share the link here), to allow others to inspect it, and possibly help with restoring at least the information which is still present in the file.

You can also open the SVG in a normal (plain text) text editor and inspect yourself, whether it appears to end halfway through a line or paragraph, or doesn't have proper closing tags (at the end of the file, you need to have the closing tags </g></svg> - else parts of the file are missing).

[1] If the system itself crashed, Inkscape does not receive a 'warning' and doesn't have the time to properly finish whatever it was doing at that time. This is different from a crash of Inkscape itself, where the application usually manages to emergency-save the current version of the file.
If your system is generally unstable, I'd recommend to use Inkscape's 'Auto-Save' feature (available since version 0.47) in the future, to minimize such damage or data loss e.g. due to external failures.

thanks again for your help, Brynn!

As it was my first time using inkscape, I didn't had the autosave on. (oops)

@ suv

Indeed, the closing tags are missing, so it's not the full document.
I've tried to upload the file via the full editor, but I don't get the file to upload. Mayby you can help with this?

thanks,

Maarten

wingtippy wrote:I've tried to upload the file via the full editor, but I don't get the file to upload. Mayby you can help with this?

Brynn will share the details (I hope ), but as far as I know, uploads are limited (or disabled?) for new users who just signed up for the forum? Once you are allowed to upload/attach files, you might have to zip the SVG file first, to avoid hitting the file size limit. Else consider using an external file sharing or image hosting service (imgh.us for example accepts and serves SVG files, but I'm not sure if it allows to upload partial files - the download should not be an issue, at least with Firefox (IIRC it would fail with IE, but I don't know for sure)).