Cannot load selected drawing

Tekla Structures

Not version-specific

Tekla Structures

General Arrangement drawing

cannot open drawing

incompatible drawing file

dg files

Environment

Not environment-specific

Question:
I am trying to open a drawing but I receive one of these messages:
Cannot load selected drawing or Incompatible drawing file. What is the problem?

Answer:
There may be several reasons for this error message; the most common ones are listed below.

Case	Explanation and actions
You have received a model from someone else or copied a model from one location to another	The copied files did not include the drawings folder that contains the .dg files. Without the .dg files, Tekla Structures can show the drawing list but it cannot open the drawings. Solution: Copy also the drawings folder and the .dg files.
You have copied .dg files from another model	Copying drawing files from one model to another is not supported. Solution: Remove the copied .dg files. Clone the drawing from the other model using the Document Manager.
You have copied .dg files from a backup	Copying drawing files from an older version of the model is not supported. Solution: See Recommendations for restoring drawings.
You have modified a drawing, used the Remove unnecessary drawing files command, and closed the model without saving it	The edited drawing cannot be opened anymore because the Remove unnecessary drawing files command deletes all .dg files that do not have a corresponding drawing in the current version of the model. Also, the .dg files that have a corresponding drawing in the last saved or the last autosaved version of the model are deleted if there is no corresponding drawing in the current version of the model. If you open an autosaved version of the model, and the drawings in the autosaved version are different from the ones in the last saved version, the file cannot be opened anymore. Solution: Restore a backup of the model. Prevention: Do not use the Remove unnecessary drawing files command unless you are sure that it will remove only the unnecessary files and always save the model before using the command. Avoid working with autosaved models for longer than the value of the advanced option `XS_DELETE_UNNECESSARY_DG_FILES_SAFETY_PERIOD`.
Model is on a network drive	If the model is on a network drive and the network connection to the server is lost, you may see the 'Cannot load selected drawing' error. Solution: Check the connection to the network drive and restore the connection if necessary.
The model name has multibyte characters	This may happen if your Windows locale and language are using multibyte characters (for example, Japanese) but Tekla Structures is used in English. Solution: Set the correct locale in the initialization files, for example: XS_STD_LOCALE=japanese Prevention: Avoid using multibyte characters in file names if you have people using different Windows locales working on the same model.
ID range mapper file db.idrm has been deleted from the model folder	Conversion from drawing static id to runtime ids has failed. This can happen, for example, if model was originally created with an old version and then upgraded to a newer version, and the id range mapper file `db.idrm` was deleted from the model folder. If your log file contains errors such as `Model Id mapping failed`, they might indicate that the problem relates to this conversion. For performance reasons, drawings are kept as static ids and they will be converted to runtime ids when they are opened first time. Solution: Restore the original `db.idrm` file.
Single-user model has been edited by more than one user at the same time	Solution: Restore a backup of the model. Prevention: Do not work around prevention measures or ignore warnings that are shown when more than one user work in the same single-user model. If several users need to work simultaneously in the same model, use Tekla Model Sharing or multi-user features. See Working collaboratively within a Tekla Structures model.
None of the above cases apply	Solution: Contact your local support.