# Cannot open vtu files with ParaView 5.8

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [March 6, 2020, 8:26am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759 "2020-03-06T08:26:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![clement](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/clement/32/3232_2.png) [@clement](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/clement)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2020, 8:26am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/1 "2020-03-06T08:26:27Z")

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Hello,

I’m trying to open vtu files. They are working with version 5.7 and previous, but not with 5.8, returning:

```
ERROR: In C:\bbd\ecd3383f\build\superbuild\paraview\src\VTK\IO\XML\vtkXMLUnstructuredDataReader.cxx, line 649
vtkXMLUnstructuredGridReader (000001A6C2F441B0): Error reading cell offsets: Unsupported array type: vtkUnsignedLongLongArray

```

Any idea of what have may have changed between the two versions?

Thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2020, 8:39am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/2 "2020-03-06T08:39:06Z")

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Please share your file

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![clement](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/clement/32/3232_2.png) [@clement](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/clement)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2020, 8:55am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/3 "2020-03-06T08:55:30Z")

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[Final\_Export\_0000 - Copy.zip](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/bSImwBgJ911taQoisIJDaIqkE2z.zip) (558 Bytes)

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2020, 9:23am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/4 "2020-03-06T09:23:25Z")

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As specified by the VTK file format document, connectivity and offsets should be Int32.  
Not sure why it worked in 5.7, but the XML Readers have been reworked recently so this accidental support may have been removed.

[https://vtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/file-formats.pdf](https://vtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/file-formats.pdf)

```
<Cells>
<DataArray type=”Int32” Name=”connectivity” .../>
<DataArray type=”Int32” Name=”offsets” .../>
<DataArray type=”UInt8” Name=”types” .../>
</Cells>
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![clement](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/clement/32/3232_2.png) [@clement](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/clement)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2020, 9:31am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/5 "2020-03-06T09:31:49Z")

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Thanks for the help !

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/cory.quammen/32/11193_2.png) [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/6 "2020-03-06T14:16:01Z")

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Related issue: [https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/19698](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/19698)

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BillS](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9fc348/32.png) [@BillS](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/BillS)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2020, 11:05am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/7 "2020-03-12T11:05:59Z")

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Another approach: I found that piping the .vtu files through "sed -i ‘s/UInt32/Int32/g’ " allowed reading by version 5.8.

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### Author: ![Bassem\_Girgis](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/bassem_girgis/32/3817_2.png) [@Bassem\_Girgis](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Bassem_Girgis)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/8 "2020-05-23T20:42:31Z")

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I’m looking at the code in vtkXMLUnstructuredDataReader.cxx:661

// Use a vtkCellArray::ArrayType64 to ensure we can represent the incoming offset array type.  
vtkSmartPointervtkCellArray::ArrayType64 newArray =  
vtkSmartPointervtkCellArray::ArrayType64::New();

It looks like the internal memory can handle 64 bit already. Then why is it limited to 32? Also why use signed when unsigned for connectivity and offsets is a more suitable type? Is this limitation by design?

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2020, 2:42am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/cannot-open-vtu-files-with-paraview-5-8/3759/9 "2020-05-24T02:42:32Z")

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Take a look at [https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/19698](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/19698)

This is already fixed and will be present in ParaView 5.8.1 that will come out in June.