I found a whole load of old files on memory sticks the other day (which was great because I thought I'd lost them) there were also a few DVD-R's with image files and documents from when my PC became ill and I had to DBAN it, so I downloaded a load of files to DVD thinking everything was fine, unfortunately after I re-installed Windows and went to put files back on my system they were unreadable, anyway I just came across one of these disk and wasn't sure at first what it was (poor organisation lol) so I popped it in the drive and had a look, but it slowed my system down to a crawl just having the disc in there, so I ejected it but managed to pull one xcf file from it - tried to open it 2.9.5 and this message came up:


Doesn't sound too healthy, I'm guessing this means it's been corrupted or something when it was written to disc? Or is it more sinister than that..?

Could it have been a development branch version of GIMP that the file was saved with?

Nope, it was 2.8 (probably 2.8.18)

in Gimp image meta-data (like comments) are attached by 'parasites'.
So it looks like your xcf file meta-data was corrupted somehow,
the parasite is not threatening.

Is there a clear meta-data script that can clean supposed corrupt XCFs so that they can be re-opened? Just brainstorming.

So you are able to access image w/o layers?

I wonder if external storage just doesn’t like .xcf file. I’ve hit this message once and will see if I get more.

In my opinion, "Parasite" is an extremely dumb name to choose for something that is shown as an error message to a casual user. It only raises questions, and not everyone out there go to this thread to read about it.

I think "Corrupt metadata" would be better. Less info for the programmer, yes, but at least the non-programmer user wouldn't get a heart attack reading about parasites on their computer. And the programmers should have a logging system in place so it was possible to run GIMP in verbose logging (debug) mode to find out more. Mrs. Johnson, 65, wouldn't get a heart attack, she would be sad for a moment when her files are lost, and the more technically savvy high school kid could find out more by using the verbose logging mode, and everyone is happy in the world of GIMP.

I was actually coming here to ask the same thing, too.
For those of us who have survived getting hacked by psychopathic neighbors, could another name be developed?
Parasite is not something you want to see in your face at 4am.
I would like to suggest that it be renamed to "Bunnies."

Example: Corrupted metadata bunnies found.

Oh well, that's kind of cute actually. I'm sure everything will be fine.