Could not complete your request because the file-format module cannot parse the file

[_nina1234567_]

Hi there!

I use Photoshop CS4 now and I have a problem when I want to import (by dragging'n dropping, importing, open - I tried every way)a .png or i.e. also an .jpg:

when I worked a short time with PS (i.e. 10 minutes) and want to open a .png then, there comes the popup-window with:
"Could not complete your request because the file-format module cannot parse the file"

The funny thing is: my file is NOT broken!! Because if I then shutdown PS and open it again, there is no longer a problem to open the .png-file.... after a while of course it comes back...

So all solutions that I found on this problem were "the norton anti virus is also running"-solution: but I have no NAV running!!
And the files are NOT damaged!! Otherwise I couldn't have opened it after restarting PS.

I purged all files and I have enough cache!! So it doesn't seem to be a problem of my computerperformance.

Any idea???

Thanks a lot,
Nina

[Chris Cox]

Other people don't have that problem -- Photoshop's PNG parser is one of the most robust available, and is successfully used by millions of people every day.

First, make sure they really are PNG files and not something else with the wrong extension.

Then, if you still have a PNG file that Photoshop cannot open, email it to me and I'll take a look.

[mdrayerrn]

Well KUDOS Chris to those milliions who didnt have this problem. I have been using photoshop since 7 came out. I am a diigtal scrapbook designer and work with millions of png files. I never had a single problem in any other photoshop edition until this one came out. They all opened my png files just fine and then i got this edition and none of them will open. They all get this error! I finally gave up with trying to fix it or get help for Adobe and went back to CS3 and it opens these SAME png files that wouldnt open just fine. AND I MEAN THE SAME EXACT PNG FILES.....

Obviously, noone there knows how to fix it and so they just keep blaming it on the file. I can send you about 3 million png files that it wont open.....

[Noel Carboni]

Post one that won't open for you here or somewhere, please. 

I, for one who's not having a general problem with PNG files, will be happy to check to see if it's something wrong with your file format.

-Noel

[Chris Cox]

So far, you are the only person reporting this problem.

Everyone else is able to open and save PNG files without a problem.

Just post one here, or email a sample to ccox (at) adobe (dot) com.

[Guest]

mdrayerrn wrote:

...I am a diigtal scrapbook designer...

You've said this twice before. You've also been asked (at least twice before) to share one of these PNG files here for examination.

Does anyone really care about troubleshooting or do we prefer to shoot our pee into the wind?

[Noel Carboni]

Out of curiosity, I did a Google search for "download PNG file scrapbook" and came up with this link in a few seconds:

http://www.brushthis.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/BrushThis_Stars.zip

I downloaded the zip file and extracted the files.  Lo and behold there are 4 actual PNG files in there but also several others that have an initial period in the name and also have the .png file extension.    These are listed in blue below:

C:\TEMP\PNG Test>dir

Volume in drive C is C - NoelC4
Volume Serial Number is 00ED-C11E

Directory of C:\TEMP\PNG Test

10/03/2011  03:26 PM    <DIR>          .
10/03/2011  03:26 PM    <DIR>          ..
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           133,299 ._BrushThis_Blue_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           128,564 ._BrushThis_Orange_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           127,392 ._BrushThis_Purple_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM                70 ._ReadMe_BrushThis.rtf
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           772,969 BrushThis_Blue_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           646,570 BrushThis_Orange_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           653,773 BrushThis_Purple_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM           682,902 BrushThis_Red_Star.png
10/03/2011  03:26 PM             1,562 ReadMe_BrushThis.rtf
               9 File(s)      3,147,101 bytes

Maybe these are some kind of special Macintosh hidden files or something, I don't know, but THESE ARE NOT properly formatted PNG files!

I can open the 4 actual PNG files in Photoshop CS4 and CS5, both 32 and 64 bit, NO PROBLEM.  Trying to open the other ones nets the error described in this thread, even with older versions of Photoshop.

I think the real problem here is that some people think that every file they download with a .png extension must be an actual properly-formatted PNG file, and that's simply not the case!  Further, by the fact that the names are similar to the real PNG files, there is ongoing confusion about which files are being opened.

-Noel

[Chris Cox]

My guess on those is that someone on a Macintosh uploaded the files with a utility that copied the resource fork of the file (previews, metatada) to the dot underscore file with the same name.  Normally those files wouldn't be visible on a MacOS or Unix filesystem.

[Noel Carboni]

Exactly.  But they would be visible to someone downloading 3 million PNG files in bulk to a Windows system from every web site they could find.  Thus they'd end up with a number of files that look like PNG files but aren't really, right along side others with similar names that they might click on when they tried a little harder to open them...

-Noel

[Guest]

Chris, those files would appear from any ZIP archive created through Finder on a Mac.  Everyone on a Mac that makes a ZIP archive does this by default. No special utility is involved.

While Noel is right on the money with a possible reason for some of the complaints, I seriously hope that users of professional image editing software are not making an amateur mistake and having this confusion between meta files and the actual image file.

[bgcat00]

I just encountered this problem. I read through quite a number of the replies here until I saw the one regarding trying to open the file in question with firefox. That was the most useful step.

My problem was that I got a png which I needed to edit, convert to grayscale and then bitmap (1 bit b/w file) and then save as a bmp. I did all of this successfully (using Photoshop 5.1 on a Win 7 64 bit system.) So the problematic file was actually created with Photoshop, not some unknown entity. The fact that Photoshop was the manipulator and determinant of the file formatting is what concerns me. This bmp file that I just created, could not be opened in Photoshop and produced the "Could not complete your request because the file-format module cannot parse the file."

Interestingly, the file is viewable in Windows Photo Viewer and a few other apps. It just won't open in Photoshop. It was when I looked at it in Firefox that I saw on the tab that it was a PNG file. When I change the extension to png, then Photoshop will open it.

So, now I can open the file. Not out of the woods yet though!!! If this file needs to be a bmp file as a software asset and I save it as a bmp in Photoshop, what repercussions happen when the software developers have problems because the BMP isn't a BMP. How do I assure that what I'm choosing to do in Photoshop, is what Photoshop is actually doing.

I want what I'm asking for. Not 'something kind of like it.'

[Noel Carboni]

bgcat00 wrote:

How do I assure that what I'm choosing to do in Photoshop, is what Photoshop is actually doing.

I want what I'm asking for. Not 'something kind of like it.'

Are you saying you can reproduce a problem where you can specifically get it to fail to open a file you just saved?  I can't.

If not, I suspect what you saw with your bmp/png file was YOUR fault, not Photoshop error.  It's not hard to imagine you accidentally chose PNG format but named the file .bmp when saving it...  You DO know that you have to choose the format, specifically, right?  Photoshop doesn't try to second guess your file extension, while some other apps do in the name of being "helpful".

So in direct answer to your question:  Operate the Save As controls properly and what you specified is what you'll get.

-Noel

[bgcat00]

I didn't 'name the file' at all. I simply chose the bmp extension. The previous version was a png file, prior to editing. This was, in fact, the fault of Photoshop. This is not the error of a novice as I've been using Photoshop since version 4.01 was released about 15 years ago.

I also didn't say that I can get it to fail. I said that it did fail to open.

As an addendum, after successfully opening one of the two bmp files after changing the bmp extension (as appended by Photoshop) to png, I saved it again as a bmp and successfull reopened it. Interestingly, the other bmp file which would not open either with the same parsing error message, now would open, even though I didn't change that file extension back to a png.

So, two files, both png files were edited, converted to greyscale and then to bitmap and both were saved as bmp files by choosing the format drop down in Photoshop. Niether would then open in Photoshop, but both were viewable in other porgrams. I changed the extension of one of them to png, and then sucessfully opened it, resaved it again as a bmp file and successfully reopened it. The second file which failed to open as well, now opened successfully although I didn't change it.

[Noel Carboni]

Since really no one here has been reporting Photoshop saving files as the wrong type after they have properly chosen the Format, it seems to me it's up to you to prove that you've saved the file using the proper Format choice.  In other words, find a way to reproduce the problem.

I've used Photoshop longer than you, and I know that no matter how much experience I have, if I found I had saved a file that is obviously of one format in its contents but with a non-matching file extension then I would STILL suspect myself of a "mental parity error" rather than Photoshop of saving the wrong content.

I think you really need to prove it was Photoshop that made the errors.

-Noel

[bgcat00]

Whether anyone is reporting that the files were saved in a faulty manner or not is irrelevant, because that is easily inferred by the fact that extensions have not been congruant with the file formats. Additionally any file that exists, has to have been saved so every one of the file problems with opening errors has a 50/50 chance that the problem is either when the file was saved, or in the process of opening it. That is simple math.

As to me proving myself, I know that I typed nothing. I simply chose to 'save as' and chose a format. If you choose not to believe me, then that is your prerogative. There will be nothing that I can do to prove that I didn't accidentally do something that I've never done before, and highly improbable that that very specific sequence of actions would happen accidentally.

Secondly, even if I were able to reproduce the error, what would be the point? That there's a bug? That already seems evident since this has happened to others and the length of this thread (not to mention others on other sites).

Lastly, how is it that Firefox opened a png file that had a bmp extension. In my experience with firefox in a windows environment, if the extension doesn't match the file format, it generates an error.

[Noel Carboni]

bgcat00 wrote:

that is easily inferred by the fact that extensions have not been congruant with the file formats.

No!  You're not getting it.

Try this:

1.  File - Save As.

2.  Choose the PNG Format.

3.  Now type in the name:  FooBar.bmp

4.  Hit Save.

Bingo, you have saved a file in PNG format but named as a BMP.  And this is 100% because of user error.  Try it and see how FireFox reacts.

-Noel

[bgcat00]

I understand what your saying and I agree that the situation you present is user error. What I'm saying is that you're proposing a situation that isn't mine.

Try this:

1. Take an existing file thats a color PNG file.

2. Open it in Photoshop

3. Choose Image>Mode>Grayscale

4. Choose Image>Mode>Bitmap

5. Chose File>Save As

DO NOT TYPE ANYTHING.

6. Choose BMP from the dropdown and click Save.

You now should have two files with the same name but different extensions.

If you then cannot open the BMP file in Photoshop, then you have the same problem I had. If you can, then your like most other users, but, clearly from this thread, not all.

If I repeat this sequence 100 times, and 2 or 3 of the times Photoshop appends the extension but doesn't save the file in the corresponding file format to that extension, then it is a bug.

You will have then repeated the process I performed. I ended up with a new file, with the same name as the old one but with the new extension (and theoretically at least) new format, that could not be opened and presented the error message:

Could not complete your request because the file-format module cannot parse the file.

As previously stated, it was not until I found out that it was still a PNG file when I opened it in Firefox, even though Photoshop changed the extension and would not open the file. I typed nothing.

In order to, even accidentally, change the name of a file (or change the text of the extension) you have to type something. I didn't type anything. I simply chose menu selections.

Perhaps you are primarily a Mac user and have had to add or change extensions to files to get them to work on other systems. I have been a Windows and even DOS user where for the past twentyfive years, the computer automatically appends the extension. So changing the name of an extension is not something that happens by accident. The only times I've ever changed the extension of a file is when it needed to be debugged; after a problem or error presented itself, not before.

Incidentally, after I solved this problem by manually changing the file extension back to png on the first file and successfully opening it, the second file which previously presented the same error message, would now open in Photoshop although I had done nothing to it (specifically regarding manually changing it's extension name).

[elisiocarmona]

Hi I managed to solve my "could not complete the paste command because the parser module cannot parse the clipboard" problems with the help of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUJ9E9KA3O8

It looked like that the problem is related to "performance" (Photoshop CC - An integer between 96 and 8 is required) and this video helped solve the integer problem and also the other one related to the "parse".