Text boxes, image boxes, and content within them disappeared / invisible

Previous topic - Next topic

Lancaster21

Hello friends: I created a document a few months ago and encountered the disappearing text boxes/content boxes issue where the boxes are no longer visible nor are their contents. If I click around I can select an item, but its contents are still invisible. If I select a text box and right click to "Edit text with story editor" I'm able to see text in the dialogue box and edit it, but still can't see text in the text box itself.
When I output to .pdf, everything is visible on the .pdf and printable.
Today I went to the same document to edit it and everything was again invisible. Used the same workaround to change text / move things and output to .pdf with each change so I could see the changes.
This document needs to be editable in the future as the info does change.
What do I do to make those boxes and their contents visible again so I can edit them?
BTW I updated to current Scribus stable version 1.6.6 today - didn't fix the problem.
MacBook Pro Apple M3 Pro chip MacOS running Tahoe 26.3.1
Here's the file

a.l.e

Something weird is going on with your document.

I've opened it with the current code and -- on top of the text not being visible, I can't select the text.
The cursor probably goes where the text should be but no selection is possible.

Zooming around behaves very strangely.

Also, the frame decoration does not get shown (borders, overflow mark, ...).

Would you mind adding your document to the bug tracker (https://bugs.scribus.net) for further inspection (and maybe find the bug that made Scribus to wrongly save the file)

AdmFubar

Ok I think I've found the issue. Open your file, make sure the outline window is open. Expand page one items, look for polygon36, select that and press the delete key to delete. Is everything that is supposed to be there show now? (It seems to on my system)
Using Scribus1.6.1, 1.7.0 openSUSE 15.6
Advanced hobbyist

utnik

Quote from: AdmFubar on April 17, 2026, 04:57:48 AM...look for polygon36, select that and press the delete key to delete...

good catch!

...but it's still strange how this small polygon with an offset of 233016.8750 inches (a couple of miles) in both directions has been placed and why it affects the visibility of the other elements...

utnik


edit: a look into the .xml code shows XPOS="nan" YPOS="nan" for this object (nan = not a number?) and the offset of 233016.8750 inches is the same value as 2^24 pt. something strange happened with this polygon.

AdmFubar

I caught it looking at the colors used in the document. Thought something got switched to white and was on top of everything else on the page. Looked at the color palette and found a number of custom (or renamed) colors. The svg#xxxx were a stand out and I deleted all of them. That didnt seem to do anything so i went back into the colors and found some of the svg name colors returned. kept deleting them, closing the palette editor and trying again till there was one svg color that woulnt delete. Then when into the outline window in scribus and started to look at the pop up image of the polygon objects on the page.  The first one happened to be the mangled one.

Even odder that the content was there and would show on a pdf export.

He did mention that he was on and M3 mac, so an ssd is involved. ssd's get a conditions know as "bit rot" and "read fatigue" where the electrical charge stored starts to dissipate, making harder for the the system to read the date on the drive. this may have resulted in the altering of the data of the .sla.

see https://forums.grc.com/search/4427834/?q=fatigue&o=date

for more info on this drive condition

Using Scribus1.6.1, 1.7.0 openSUSE 15.6
Advanced hobbyist