Arcade.xml is corrupt

[Rumplik]

I receive the following message when loading LaunchBox:

It appears that your LaunchBox\Data\Arcade.xml file is corrupt; LaunchBox cannot continue.  Please try restoring a backup of the file from the Backups folder inside of your LaunchBox root folder. (unknown symbol looks like 3 dots '.'), hexadecimal value 0x00, is an invalid character. Line 703335, position 3.

Also, a few weeks ago one of my custom game lists become corrupt and LaunchBox would not open.  I was able to work around both issues, but in both instances I lost some work.  My present solution is to remember to manually backup my xml files every day.  I ran chkdsk and my drive has no problems.

My LaunchBox is up to date.  I purchased a 1 year licence about 1 month ago. Why am I getting corrupt xml files? 

 

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, Rumplik said:

(unknown symbol looks like 3 dots '.'), hexadecimal value 0x00, is an invalid character. Line 703335, position 3.

Well that sounds like the problem, it sounds like you have a illegal character in the xml file somehow, have you ever manually edited it? If you open that .xml file with notepad++ and find line 703335 what is in that line?

[Rumplik]

I do not manually edit the files.  However, the error peaked my curiosity, so tried to find the bad character and repair the file.  I cannot open the file with the xml editor I downloaded because it is corrupt.  However, I can open it with Notepad. The location of the bad character is after the last line of text and there is no visible character there.  I deleted the seemingly blank line and received an error message stating the xml file was the wrong length (or something like that).  Once again, I did not manually edit the files before the errors.  The errors are being generated by LaunchBox somehow.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, Rumplik said:

I do not manually edit the files.  However, the error peaked my curiosity, so tried to find the bad character and repair the file.  I cannot open the file with the xml editor I downloaded because it is corrupt.  However, I can open it with Notepad. The location of the bad character is after the last line of text and there is no visible character there.  I deleted the seemingly blank line and received an error message stating the xml file was the wrong length (or something like that).  Once again, I did not manually edit the files before the errors.  The errors are being generated by LaunchBox somehow.

Hmm, can you post the .xml here so i can take a look?

[Rumplik]

I replaced the corrupt file with a file from a few months ago.

[RevJoe98]

I just had this come up when I tried to open LB.  It was working fine.  What's wrong, and how do I restore it?  Thank you for any help!  P.S. I have no idea how to work with xml, but am willing to learn.   

Automatic LaunchBox Startup Data Backup 2020-04-16 16-23-22.7z

[sundogak]

@RevJoe98LB automatically backs up key XML files.  They are located in your  ...\Launchbox\Backups directory as Zipped files.  The zip files are named with date and time.  So go in to the most recent one and look within the zip file and will see a Platforms folder which contains the Arcade XML file.  Extract and take the non-corrupt file and replace the corrupt one in your  ...Launchbox\Data\Platforms directory. 

If you just want to restore all XMLs back to a certain time, then LB has a restore feature under Tools and Restore in LB.  It will point you to the same Zip file folder as mentioned above to select the date you want.  I have never used it myself.  But if you just want to restore one platform would do as noted above. 

[RevJoe98]

I'm not sure, but replacing it from the backup got it running!  Thank y'all for your help!