Broken MusicXML files - help needed

• Jun 25, 2018 - 22:38

I have just received two XML files, I think exported from Sibelius. They contain a Magnificat and a Nunc Dimittis, so these are short works. The error message when I try to open the files in MuseScore is:
"Fatal error: line 1 column 56 Start tag expected."

I would really appreciate some help in fixing these files, because I don't even have a PDF of the original manuscript! Thank you in advance...


Comments

I'm afraid you're struck by the same mystery file format issue as you had back in January (https://musescore.org/en/node/268614)

I've opened both files with Notepad++ which detects them as being encoded in UTF-8 with BOM. I've changed the encoding to plain UTF-8 and also updated the opening xml tag to state UTF-8 rather than UTF-16.
Both files now open in MuseScore 2.2.1.

In reply to by jeetee

Thank you both! My memory obviously isn't what is was, because the previous incident is indeed the identical problem. I had not processed the files in any way (e.g. to open them in Notepad++), so I think that perhaps the parameters for the Sibelius export might be to blame? These two files are from the same person as in January...

In reply to by DanielR

Maybe the transport from that person to you somehow changed them in this bad way? (i.e. the mismatch of "UTF-16" vs. being reported as UTF-8 with BOM)

I believe in addition to my change of that text in line 1, the program I used (vim for Windows) did the conversion that Jeetee did in NotePad++, on opening the file

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