# Error loading STL file

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-loading-stl-file/6248
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [January 17, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-loading-stl-file/6248 "2021-01-17T23:07:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![sihaqqi](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@sihaqqi](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sihaqqi)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-loading-stl-file/6248/1 "2021-01-17T23:07:11Z")

</div>

Hello,  
While trying to open my STL file in paraview, I am receiving errors as below. I have made my stl combing other stl files using cat stl/\* \> myRegionSTL.stl. All other stl files are opening successfully but this combined file named as myRegionSTL.stl is creating issues. Please help. Thanks and Regards.

ERROR: In /builds/gitlab-kitware-sciviz-ci/build/superbuild/paraview/src/VTK/IO/Geometry/vtkSTLReader.cxx, line 658  
vtkSTLReader (0x17ea0070): STLReader: error while reading file /home/imad/myRegionSTL.stl at line 1: Parse error. Expecting ‘solid’ found ‘-1’

ERROR: In /builds/gitlab-kitware-sciviz-ci/build/superbuild/paraview/src/VTK/Common/ExecutionModel/vtkExecutive.cxx, line 753  
vtkPVCompositeDataPipeline (0x176d9010): Algorithm vtkFileSeriesReader(0x18508ab0) returned failure for request: vtkInformation (0x15740540)  
Debug: Off  
Modified Time: 422724  
Reference Count: 1  
Registered Events: (none)  
Request: REQUEST\_DATA  
FROM\_OUTPUT\_PORT: 0  
ALGORITHM\_AFTER\_FORWARD: 1  
FORWARD\_DIRECTION: 0

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Joachim\_P](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/joachim_p/32/9596_2.png) [@Joachim\_P](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Joachim_P)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2021, 11:49pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-loading-stl-file/6248/2 "2021-01-17T23:49:23Z")

</div>

The reported error is quite informative here (at line 1: Parse error. Expecting ‘solid’ found ‘-1’).  
Could you please show the first lines of your combined file?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![sihaqqi](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@sihaqqi](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sihaqqi)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2021, 12:50am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-loading-stl-file/6248/3 "2021-01-18T00:50:28Z")

</div>

![paraview eror](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/b/b18b2cb4bb7111a6c5ac1fccf939446a9c7a7d03.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Joachim\_P](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/joachim_p/32/9596_2.png) [@Joachim\_P](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Joachim_P)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2021, 11:07am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-loading-stl-file/6248/4 "2021-01-23T11:07:17Z")

</div>

If `-1` is the content of the first line of your file then there is something wrong with it.