TouchGFX breaks project file "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime"

[Tuoman]

This error broke my project file, I cannot open it anymore.

"String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."

Which string? Where? How to fix the project file?

Might have to do something with regional time settings. I use Finnish/Finland Windows time, and recently switched it. I cannot recover the project file anymore by switching back to English.

Maybe date in dot format (17.1.2020 vs. 1-17-2020) breaks the time string parser of TouchGFX designer.

[Martin KJELDSEN]

Can you send it to me? When did it start happening?

/Martin

[Tuoman]

Sent .zip file of broken project file. Problem occurred after changing regional time settings on Windows.

I also found one solution:

I used 4.12 to create the project file.

1. You need to first set your regional time settings to English
2. Open project using TouchGFX 4.13, it will suggest to convert the project file from 4.12->4.13, press Yes
3. Project file is recovered!

BUT! If you do not change regional time settings first (step1), the project file will be broken yet again, and cannot be opened even if you later try to change time settings!

[Martin KJELDSEN]

I just found another solution - It turns out that the excel sheet (texts.xlsx) can be corrupted. If you open that and excel says it needs to recoved, then this could be another cause of the issue.

Just tried a project where this was the case and recovering the sheet allowed upgrade from 4.12.3 to 4.13.0.

/Martin

[RKros.1]

My old computer was installed with a DK version of Windows and I had no problems with corrupted spreadsheets. I recently changed computer (summer 2019) and asked for an US version of Windows. Ever since I have had the described problem, and I used the recover spreadsheet method, but the problem does not go away. I will have the same error message every time I open a new project in version 4.13.0, it was less in the previous version of TouchGFX.