I’ve been using Notepad++ for a couple of years and have mostly good things to say about it. However my one gripe is that on any system I’ve installed it on the program has been a ticking time-bomb and will inevitably start spitting out errors every time I open it. Usually I simply ignore the error and go on my merry way, as I’m in the middle of fixing something else and can’t be bothered to fix my editor as well. Today was one of those days where I finally took the initiative to fix it.

The error gave a good indication as to what the issue was, so I simply opened up the installation folder (in my case it was C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\) and inspected the langs.xml file. At first everything looked normal, but once I reached the end of the file I noticed it’s abrupt ending; something had caused every character after a certain point to just vanish. None of the XML tags were closed properly as a result. Unsure of what would happen if I just removed this file, I renamed it to langs.xml.bak and reloaded Notepad++. The program loaded without any errors and silently recreated the langs.xml file from scratch. Problem solved!

Brad Fettes

A seasoned Senior Solutions Architect with 20 years of experience in technology design and implementation. Renowned for innovative solutions and strategic insights, he excels in driving complex projects to success. Outside work, he is a passionate fisherman and fish keeper, specializing in planted tanks.