Urgent - Lightburn files are becoming corrupted and will not open

I recently upgraded from 1.6 to 1.7 (running 1.7.0.1 now).
Issue occurs on my desktop running windows 10 and my laptop running W11.
Files are saved on my NAS drive and I did face the issue with saving to NAS in 1.7.0

When I try to open previously perfect files I get errors such as “Expected character data (line xxxx)” and “Encountered incorrectly coded content (line xxxx)”
The file will open but with only a few shapes in it - most are missing.
It seems to be when I have opened an existing file, made a simple change and then saved it. I cannot open the file again without error. It seems to not affect every file but certainly most of them.
My problem is that these are my daughters master files for her jewelry business and now they seem corrupted and cannot be opened. she is obviously very stressed. I’m hoping the issue can be fixed and the files recovered.
Capture1
Capture

I have reinstalled 1.6 and tried to open the files but the same errors occur.
These files have been fine up unti lnow and have been used for over 12 months with no problems

Thank you for reading
Any help or suggestions appreciated

Quick question, what is your “Baud rate” on “device settings” window?
Are you using cable connection? If yes, did you check cable connections?
Cables with a ferrite core help and solve many communication problems.

I cannot see baud rate in device settings however the laptop does not need to be connected to the laser to experience the issue. It happens when trying to open a standalone file.
The controller is a Ruida 644XS in the device settings though

When I see “ruida” I step aside. Not because it’s bad but because I don’t know nothing about it. :wink:
Sorry, can´t help more.

I’ve just realised I can attach a lbrn file here.
Here is one of the affected files

Green Star cutout sheet.lbrn2 (317.8 KB)

Yep, that file’s corrupted. Here’s the corrupted section:

Corrupted files seem to be common when saving LB files (including material and artwork libraries) to a cloud drive or a NAS. I’ve not personally had any issues saving to my NAS but I know many others that have lost designs because of this issue. Your NAS might have saved older versions of your files that you can restore from so that might be a way to get your files back, albeit not the latest versions.

Hope this helps.

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Damn :frowning:
Is there any way of restoring corrupted files (maybe by removing the corrupted part)? Or more importantly stopping it happening?
It’s corrupted 4 files tonight.

I have a backup for one of them but it’s several months old so not current. I run RAID drives to prevent data loss but it doesn’t stop this problem.

I run my business and my daughters business using lightburn and I can’t be in a situation where I can’t add a shape to file and save it without it getting corrupted.

Hopefully admin can offer some advice but it seems 1.7 is not playing nicely with NAS storage.

Managed to get it open. I took a brute force approach, chopped out anything it complained about. (in this case, around line 546 and 583). See attached. Obviously there will be some missing vertices/paths/data, but not being familiar with the file I can’t spot what.
green_star_patched.lbrn2 (315.6 KB)

In the case of your sample file it was quite simple to remove the corrupted part as it was limited to a single small section. However, it appeared to make no difference when opened in LB, there was still a lot missing. I could tell this because the thumbnail showed a lot more shapes than were present when opened in LB. I also didn’t get any errors other than a warning about a missing font.

I don’t know whether 1.7 suffers any more than earlier versions in this respect but I’m pretty sure this issue has been around for at least as long as I’ve been an LB user (abt 3 years).

I use a Synology NAS which keeps a version history so I can get back earlier versions should I need to. Perhaps your NAS has similar functionality?

Thanks Marcus.
I also have a synology and just found out the recycle bin is enabled for that folder so I managed to find a more recent copy.

I may need to roll back to 1.6 as that never had these issues. I’ll see what LB suggest

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That’s great, I hope you haven’t lost too much data.

MY policy has always been don’t update just for the sake of having the latest version. It always causes issues. If there’s some feature you have to have then i would upgrade. Every piece of software has bugs. When you upgrade it usually fixes old bugs but opens up a whole set of new ones. At least if your going to upgrade wait a bit until new bugs are identified and a patch to fix any identified issues is available. Saves a lot of frustration. I learned this from working in IT Software Support for 33 years

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I save locally, then move a COPY to the cloud as/when needed.
Usually design in the house or workshop PC’s, then pull down the file (from the cloud) onto the laptop that’s physically connected to the laser. More times than I can count, I’ve been saved by having the original just a few steps away at another computer.
Yes, it’s a minor inconvenience compared to what you’re experiencing. I too have IT experience.

Sorta like Bones, the doctor from the original Star Trek series. He hated having his body scattered in electrons across the universe via the Transporter. Ha!

I save locally and that folder is backed up daily to the NAS. I then like you d/l from the NAS to the laptop connected to the laser/cnc machines. SO FAR I have not had a single file failure, any files I modify there are copied back to the NAS. The closest I have come to a failure is is when the UPS on the NAS drained during an extended power outage, but a flash drive to the rescue in that case from the primary design laptop. I have a spare UPS I can run any of the laptops from if required, In my case it’s 40+ IT experience.(retired)…see a trend here of people having quick recovery of files. Oh and I get updates as they are avail BUT they get loaded onto another laptop until I am confident in them.

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I have File History turned on on my Win 10 Machine. It automatically makes a backup to my backup hard dirve when a file changes. You can also set how often to back up files and how long to keep them

That’s good advice, I have file history turned on as well but in my experience it doesn’t work on cloud or network drives. Cloud services such as Google Drive have their own version history from which you can restore. NAS drives will sometimes come with tools to give similar functionality but it often requires enabling as it might not be ‘on’ by default.

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Nothing in the way LightBurn saves or loads project data has changed between 1.6 and 1.7, so I’d be equally suspicious of the NAS drive failing. I’ve had several large NAS units fail on me in the past, and that soured me on using them.

Now I manually copy my files to a cloud sync (using OneDrive or iCloud can actually interfere with saving on occasion).

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Just adding here that I wasn’t aware that LB had any issues at all writing to NAS drives. Since I started using LB over a year ago, all my stuff is saved directly to my Synology box and I load and save from both my desktop machine and the laptop out in the garage. I have never had a single issue with corrupt files - but now you guys are scaring me a little.

I use Synology Hyper Backup to keep a rolling 30 day backup locally, plus everything is backed up nightly to Synology C2 Cloud should my NAS just die on me. Of course, now that I’m putting it out there into the universe…