"Bad File" Message When Opening a Specific File - Any Solutions? Topic is solved

[Dax Schaffer]

Hello, this is my first time posting in these forums, so I hope I'm going about this correctly. I am currently coloring a short film for a client in the most recent version of TVPaint. When opening a shot I had prepped for another artist, it told me that this was a "bad file" with two options of stop or continue. Both buttons yield the same result: a version of the file missing many layers and frames of what is supposed to be there. Is there a solution for this? I've glanced through some other posts and apparently sending the file directly for analysis is sometimes an option? I have asked the other artist to see if they are able to open the file on their end, but am still waiting to hear back. I think duplicating the project from within TVP is a kind of solution, but only if you still had the file open before closing, which I do not.

I have previous versions of the scene that will open, but this one had several hours of progress over the previous versions, so not having to redo lost work would be appreciated.

Thank you very much and have a great weekend!
~Dax

[o0Ampy0o]

When something like this happens cancel then make a copy of the file and work with the copy. Protect the original or you could make it worse.

Can they send you another file?

Are you both using the latest version of TVPaint?

If they are on a newer version than you they would be able to open your file but when they sent you a file saved on their system you might not be able to open it.

[Dax Schaffer]

Hi o0Ampy0o, I should probably clarify. I am the one prepping the file, there has been no other intermediate between this version and the last version I had created that opens properly (I create multiple versions of scenes as I work on them for this exact type of reason). I asked the other artist if they could open the file I sent to them, and she said it crashed her system every time. We both have up to date versions of TVPaint. It's strange because the thumbnail still shows up correctly with the way the scene is supposed to look. Thank you for offering your advice.

I did try simply copying the file and renaming it; even moved it to a new hard drive, but nothing changed the situation. I can internally duplicate the file from a previous version, but it would be very awesome if I could not lose hours of work on this. Is there any kind of recovery option that TVPaint offers for this situation? I only ask this since there was really nothing on my part here causing this file to not work. Despite the many wonderful things I love about this software, I have noticed a number of glitchy issues from time to time. Usually, a restart can fix things, but I have found no work around here. Is the file just bad now? How am I meant to know in the future when TVPaint just saves a file incorrectly? I am not bashing this software as I love it quite a lot, but things like this are frustrating, and I have run into similar instances previously where a file wouldn't open easily simply because it had too many layers or something inexplicable. Thank you for any assistance.

[Elodie]

Could you send this file through We Transfer so we can look at it ?

[Dax Schaffer]

I would love to Elodie, thank you. I will PM you about this shortly.

[Elodie]

I've got the file and instructions. I will see with developers when they will be in the office

[Dax Schaffer]

Thank you so much. It occurs to me from comparing the file sizes of different versions that the corrupted file is roughly half the size of what it should be, so perhaps some data was just lost and for some reason didn't save correctly. In any case, I would love to know if anything is at all recoverable. Thanks!

[Elodie]

That's what we could see with developers at the first attempt to open it. Hopefully we can save some data anyway (stay tuned).

Edit : ok done, I sent it by PM.