Failed to open ""

Bug graveyard
1

Does anyone who has a larger volt also seems to often get this message displayed?
Most notes open just fine despite this message while some are not opening and this message is dispayed. It does consistently show up on some notes, deeper in the directory tree and consistently doesnt show up on some notes, I think.

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image469Ă—355 3.04 KB

2 Likes
2

Having same issue

3

This worked for me:

  • Close Obsidian
  • Delete .obsidian (or move it somewhere else outside the vault)
  • Open Obsidian
    • let it sync
  • Close Obsidian
  • Restore .obsidian
4

oh no. I’m having the same issue since yesterday :hot_face:

5

What is the output of “show debug info”

6

If enable restricted mode and restart obsidian, does it still happen?

7

yes. It happened on Windows, Mac and iOS. What I did to fix it: I opened the faulty files with the Mac MD editor “Sublime text”, edited them by adding a line break, and once everything resynced, it worked again.
It could be that it was caused by changing a lot of note titles at the same time.

8

This is now that it’s fixed again:

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.6
Installer version: v1.6.5
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro 10.0.19045
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: insider
Insider build toggle: on
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 6
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 34
Plugins enabled: 13
1: Hotkey Helper v0.3.20
2: URI Commands v1.0.1
3: Style Settings v1.0.9
4: Blockquote Levels v1.1.0
5: Advanced URI v1.44.3
6: Templater v2.9.3
7: Calendar v1.5.10
8: Natural Language Dates v0.6.2
9: Copy Block Link v1.0.4
10: Excel to Markdown Table v0.4.0
11: BRAT v1.0.6
12: Hotkeys for templates v1.4.3
13: Pane Relief v0.5.8

RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.

9

Do you have a copy of the notes that do not work?

10

I’m afraid they are all fixed now. I will see if I can recover a not working one from a backup

11

This just started happening to me after upgrading to 1.8.7. I was working in a note, then it refused to open. (Thank you so much for mentioning that editing in other text editors helped make files workable for your, @chrsle !)

Here’s the output of Show Debug Info for me, while the files aren’t opening:
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.7
Installer version: v1.8.3
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.3.0: Thu Jan 2 20:24:16 PST 2025; root:xnu-11215.81.4~3/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 24.3.0
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: AnuPpuccin v1.5.0
Snippets enabled: 6
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.

1 Like
12

Can someone send me or dm a link to a note where this happens?

13

thanks for the DM

1 Like
14

we will have a fix in v1.8.8. No ETAs

3 Likes
15

In the meantime you might want to downgrade and use an older version from the github repo
For me downgrading to 1.8.4 was a workaround for the issue (couldn’t open any daily notes)

1 Like
16

A critical issue: Unable to open the file. Can you release a fix sooner?

17

They can’t release a fix sooner than they release the fix, no. :slight_smile:

As mentioned above you’ll have to wait for the public release of 1.8.8 or you can downgrade to a previous version.

If you downgrade, you might have to: (backup first to be safe)

18

I’ve had this error with a lot of files (basically every daily file from the last couple months), and the fastest approach I’ve found is:

  1. Open an affected file using Obsidian on mobile,
  2. Add a new line of content (paste something like file error fix and hit return/enter), then
  3. Save the file.

As soon as those edits to the file syncs, I’ve been able to open it again on desktop.

So if you happen to use Obsidian both on desktop and mobile, that’s another approach that doesn’t involve downgrading or waiting.

If you don’t have Obsidian on mobile, I’ve also been able to do the same “open the file, add some content on a new line, then save” approach using both VS Code and Zettlr.

Hopefully that’s helpful info for other people, at least until the next public release comes out!

2 Likes
19

Here’s the work-around I’m using in the Windows version until this is resolved…

  1. Right click in the files list on the document that is failing to open
  2. Select “Open in default app” (Mine is Visual Studio but could be any text editor)
  3. Add a line somewhere in the document and save it
  4. You should now be able to open it in Obsidian
20

Just happened to me today. it only affects one of my note pages. The others seem fine. It was working a few minutes ago-not sure what happened