Critical Error, Exception: Element Groups is not allowedd

[janieve]

Hello, I am having a Critical Error every time I open my saved file in .sm2d file. It says: “Critical Error. File Exception: element groups is not allowed for content model ‘(calculation+, modeling+,pieces+,groups?,images?)’. I have already updated the software, restarted it, and still it does not open. Can you help me? Thank you.

[nejcek74]

You can check these posts for solutions, but you will need to manipulate the .sm2d file in a text editor. A certain level of caution is needed:

Pattern throws error (part)

Sorry, all my posts became confusing. I have a sm2d file that suddenly throws an error [error] on opening the sm2d file I found a tag that doesn’t belong [error (2)] I deleted line 151 ‘groups/’. And the file opened in seamly2d, i edited a bit, saved the file. The ‘groups/’ is there again, and the file fails to open.

Pattern throws error

I worked to extend an older patternfile. Created the pdf I needed, closed the pattern. After printing I found an error I needed to correct. The file now doesn’t open, it throws an error. “element ‘groups’ is not allowed for current model.” I opened the file and found a tag. There isn’t a group defined (There was previously, but I deleted that group. Removing the from the file solved it. But I thought to make you aware. Win, Seamly 2D 2025.10.6.204

or you wait for moderators who will help you to upload your files and probably make those changes for you.

[Grace]

Hello and welcome to the Seamly forum, @janieve

If you open the pattern file in a text editor, the different sections of the pattern are listed in a certain order. A while back, we had a problem where the images section was saving before the groups section. This is why these 2 have ? after the name in the error. This has been resolved but earlier patterns will still have this error, so you need to fix it manually.

All you need to do is to drag the images section to after the groups section in the text editor and save the file. You will also need to update your Seamly software to the latest version to prevent this from happening again.

If you jare uncertain to do this, you are welcome to post the pattern & measurement file on here and one of us will do it for you.

[janieve]

Hello, Thank you so much! I have already fixed the problem. though I am thinking, is there any way that I can save the file with groups? I just deleted all the groups as per instruction. because if I’d be creating new groups, same problems might occur.

[Grace]

@janieve

I just deleted all the groups as per instruction

I don’t think this will repair the problem properly. As soon as you create new groups, the problem will come back (in my experience). You need to switch the 2 place holders for the images & the groups so that the groups are before the images & the images are last, and you need to update your software to the latest version so that this doesn’t happen again.

If you send us your files, we can do it for you very quickly, however, I’m at the office today, so I’ll only see the files this evening when I get home, but I’m sure there will be someone else who can help you during the day.

[Douglas]

@janieve

Hello, Thank you so much! I have already fixed the problem. though I am thinking, is there any way that I can save the file with groups? I just deleted all the groups as per instruction. because if I’d be creating new groups, same problems might occur.

Besides correcting any pattern file(s), you need to update the application. You must have the build that was writing the groups and images in the wrong order.

[coaty]

@Grace

All you need to do is to drag the images section to after the groups section in the text editor and save the

Hi there Grace,

I downloaded Seamly today (04.01.2026) and created a new project. After closing and re opening the software I ran in to the same issue. Your fix worked for me (Thank You!). It seems the issue is still in the software.

[Douglas]

@coaty

I downloaded Seamly today (04.01.2026) and created a new project. After closing and re opening the software I ran in to the same issue. Your fix worked for me (Thank You!). It seems the issue is still in the software.

You must have used the one build that was writing the tags incorrectly when creating the pattern. There was still an issue with the groups and images tags out of order in the pattern file. The newer app will only prevent writing the tags incorrectly, but will not fix pattern with an incorrect order in the tags. That’s why one has to edit the pattern manually, AND update the app.

[Pneumarian]

You downloaded it today, but was it the Latest, or what was the release date? Because no releases have gone out today, so I know the date you posted isn’t the release date of what you downloaded.

@Sue Does the “official” download link auto-update, or does it rely on someone to make sure that it’s pointed to a recent stable release?

[Douglas]

@Pneumarian

Does the “official” download link auto-update, or does it rely on someone to make sure that it’s pointed to a recent stable release?

Yes - It Auto Updates. It’s all built into the CI workflow. When a new “release” is built (either by the CI chronologically,

or manually converting a pre-release to a release) Github will update the latest release on the Seamly Github code page:

Note: There is a new build released 15 mins ago via the CI chron build.

When the CI workflow is run at the specified time, it will build and run the tests, build the Linux, Mac, and Windows releases, and Publish an update of the Doxygen documents. Any of the Workflow actions are available through the Actions tab… you can then download an artifact build from a specific PR or for ex: the CI workflow.

That means with downloading an artifact you can get a build in the middle of the week that may fix a bug or have a new feature without waiting till Sunday / Monday to download the Latest release. Frankly I wish more users would download artifacts or pre-releases so they could test, and if needed a quick bug fix might be made before the actual release.

BTW… A pre-release is built when ever a PR is merged with the devlop branch.

An artifact is built when ever a PR is made or updated.

If you Check for updates in the App, the above release is what you would get.

If you click the + 643 releases link you will then get a listing of all the pre-releases as well as the releases.

The user said they downloaded Seamly on jan 4 2026… not that they downloaded a release from jan 4, 2026.

That being said… Without seeing the Build ver, we don’t know what they downloaded or from where. I pretty much can say that any build since I fixed the groups - images tag issue, it will not cause the tags to write out of order, but it will not fix a broken pattern caused by the one release that got out for a week or 2. I could write a patterm conversion that could auto fix the order issue, but writing XML to reorder element & attribute tags can be tedious. At this point not worth the effort as we’re getting further away from that bad release.