PSPX8; Unable to Open File Error

[Ron P.]

I'm getting the above error message when I attempt to open a .pspimage file. The file was saved from X8. It started as a Canon RAW file (*.CR2) created with my 70D. It has several layers, mainly adjustment layers. After working on it, I used Save As and chose the working document type of pspimage. Then when trying to open the file I get the error message: Unable to open the file. Please verify that the file is valid.
Does anyone else experience this?

Version: PSPX8 18.1.0.67 X64
Running Windows 10 current updates

[Joelle]

Have you tried resetting the program using the Shift Key?
That often cures a lot of ills
Close PSP, open it again holding the Shift key at the same time.
click OK when the program tells you it is resetting to it's default settings.

If you have customised your workspace save it first.
You will need to reset Preferences and File Locations.

Joëlle

[Ron P.]

Yes, I've tried that and didn't change anything. The file is quite large, 450MB, since it had several layers.

[hartpaul]

Have you tried experimenting to see if it is a consistent thing or just with large files and how large.
eg,.
Make a single layer file and save as pspfile. Does that reopen?
Duplicate the layer and save that as a pspfile (2 layers) . Does that reopen?
keep repeating and adding the layers and adjustment layers and saving to see where it starts causing problems.
If you get up to the same size pspfile and no problems then it would suggest a defect in that original save and faulty file.
If no others are experiencing this problem then it would suggest the problem is with your system.

[Indy Magnoli]

I'm having the same error message. I've been working on this image for a couple of weeks with no problems. I saved it last night... went to load it just now and getting the same error message! Nothing has changed with my system, so this makes no sense whatsoever. Any other ideas? I don't want to lose a couple of weeks worth of work here...

[brucet]

Dumb idea but have you tried double clicking the file in Windows explorer? This should open the file in the program that created it. If it does work then I suggest you immediately re save the file using a different name.

good luck.

[hartpaul]

This also gives a reason why you should save a number of copies of a files eg after 3 layers , after 6 layers etc so that if something goes faulty then you don't lose the whole image and all the time.
If it is just that file it could also be because of a corrupted disc sector, try running diskcheck to see if it can recover unreadable files.

[Rick_R]

I don't disagree with any of the previous posts, but something I ran into several years ago that was completely unsuspected:

I was manually scanning in book pages. IrfanView can take scans and that worked fine. PSP would crash after scanning about 2 pages. I just assumed it was a bug in PSP, so I would just have to live with it.

It turned out I had installed a program (Spartan) that saves anything copied to the Windows clipboard. Somehow, the amount of memory that program uses was interfering with the amount of memory PSP was using to hold several scanned pages. Once I uninstalled the other program, the PSP crashes stopped.

When you're working with large files, it's possible some other program's memory usage can interfere and cause problems with PSP. (Unfortunately, it does sound like the file itself has been corrupted, possibly by this problem between saves.)

Also, remember that file size is a lot smaller than size in RAM.

[Indy Magnoli]

Several years later... got the same problem again. The frustrating thing is that the thumbnail is visible in the preview window of the "Open File" window. But when I go to open the file I get the following error message:

"Unable to open the file. Please verify that the file is valid."

I found a few backup copies in the temp folder and none of them were able to open (all had the same error message).

Any ideas? Is the file corrupted beyond repair?

[LeviFiction]

Care to upload? I am still a long way off from a viable option but I have made strides in recovering corrupted files

[Indy Magnoli]

The file is over 800 MB, so not an easy upload... any ideas of fixes I can do on my end?

[LeviFiction]

The file is corrupted. There is no "fixing" it at the moment. I am working on a script that can generally read the file and attempt to find areas that are corrupted but it's not complete, I do a lot of the analysis manually. Once I know what's wrong I attempt to manually re-create the file. I will let you know this, the three instances that I've seen so far usually has a few lines of pixels missing at the bottom of several layers. In fact almost every layer after the first corruption. With a size of 800MB I'm going to assume there are a lot of layers.

So you won't be able to recover the entire contents of the file.

[rondo]

You might try some of the steps outlined in this article-https://www.lifewire.com/fix-corrupted-files-4705951
and here- https://www.lifewire.com/psp-file-2622196