Files that need repairs

A lot of KML in the world isn’t quite valid: written by hand, by old exporters, or cut short by a download. Google Earth shrugs at some of it; most apps refuse it all. KML Explore reads every file strictly first. When that fails, it repairs a copy in memory and opens that, and says what it did. Your file is not changed.

Repaired to open

A repaired file opens with a banner over the map: Repaired to open, and what was repaired (or how many problems were). Details lists each repair; OK puts the banner away for this window.

What KML Explore repairs:

The problem	The repair
An “&” not written as `&` (in a name, a link)	Escaped
HTML entities such as ` `, which XML doesn’t know	Turned into the characters they stand for
Raw HTML in a description, not escaped or in a CDATA section	Read as the description’s text
Text in Windows Latin 1 in a file that says it is UTF-8	Those characters read as Latin 1
A file that says UTF-16 but is UTF-8	Read as UTF-8
Text before the start of the XML	Removed
A damaged XML declaration	Repaired
Control characters XML doesn’t allow	Removed
`gx:`, `kml:`, `atom:`, `xal:` or `xsi:` used without being declared	Declared
A file that ends early, as a download cut short does	Read as far as it goes; the last item may be incomplete
Something after the end of the KML (a second copy, junk)	Ignored, from the line where it starts
A KMZ cut short or with a damaged directory	The files in it that are whole are read
A KMZ whose map isn’t named .kml	Found; saving names it with .kml
A KMZ written on Windows, with “\” in its paths	Read with “/”
A picture in a KMZ that is damaged, or compressed in a way that can’t be read	Left out, and named
A file in a KMZ that doesn’t match its checksum	Read, with a note that it may be damaged

If you edit a repaired file with Pro, saving writes the repaired version, which Google Earth and other apps open too. Until then, nothing is written. Quick Look reads files the same way, so a repaired file gets its picture in Finder and Files too.

What can’t be opened

When a file can’t be repaired safely, KML Explore says what is wrong instead of opening part of it as if it were whole:

The message	What it means, what to do
The file is empty.	Nothing arrived. Download or send it again.
This is a web page, not a KML file	The link needed a sign-in or no longer leads to the file. Download it again from where it came from.
This is a GPX file, not KML.	A GPX under a .kml name. GPX Explore opens GPX files.
This is a GeoJSON file, not KML. Open it in an app that reads GeoJSON files.	A GeoJSON under a .kml name.
The file’s XML is broken at line …, column …	A mistake KML Explore can’t repair, such as a tag closed in the wrong place. Fix that line in a text editor and open it again.
This is XML, but not KML: it starts with <…>.	Another kind of XML file.
The KMZ has no map inside	The zip holds no KML file.
The KMZ is damaged, and no map could be read from it.	Download it again from where it came from.
The KMZ uses …, which KML Explore can’t read.	An encrypted KMZ, for example. Ask for one without a password.

A description missing its closing tag is refused rather than repaired, because the repair would swallow the placemarks after it.