P8 File Complications
Typical P8 Opening Challenges
PICO-8 Not Present
You encounter an error message such as "%%os%% Can't Open P8 Files" when trying to open your P8. Usually, this is because you do not have PICO-8 for %%os%% installed. The typical path of opening your P8 with a double-click won't work because %%os%% cannot make the program connection.
Tip: If you don't have PICO-8 installed, and you know of another program to open your P8 file, you can try opening it by selecting from the programs listed under "Show Apps".
PICO-8 Requires Update
It is possible that your version of PICO-8 isn't able to open your PICO-8 Data file due to incompatibility. If you've got the wrong version of PICO-8 installed, you'll need to install the correct version. The primary cause of this problem is that your PICO-8 Data file was created by a different (newer) version of PICO-8 than what's installed.
Tip: If you right-click on your P8 file, then select "Properties" (Windows) or "Get Info" (Mac), you can obtain hints about what version you need.
Primarily, problems experienced when opening P8 files are due to having the incorrect version of PICO-8 installed on your computer.
Associated Difficulties Loading P8 Files
Errors opening PICO-8 Data files can still occur even with the latest PICO-8 software installed on your computer. If you are continuing to have errors with loading P8 files, other external issues might be to blame. These other problems include (listed in order from most to least common):
- P8 file references in the Windows Registry are broken
- Deletion of the P8 file description from the Registry by mistake
- Invalid installation of a P8-associated program (eg. PICO-8)
- P8 file corruption
- Your P8 is infected with malware
- Device drivers of the hardware associated with your P8 file are corrupt or out-of-date
- Windows cannot load your PICO-8 Data file due to insufficient resources (eg. RAM)
Quiz: How many characters long can a filename be?
That's Correct!
The sum of the individual components of a filename (eg. subdirectory / path and the final filename) are limited to 255 characters in total.
Close, but not quite...
The sum of the individual components of a filename (eg. subdirectory / path and the final filename) are limited to 255 characters in total.