Cannot convert project: C:\workspace_IntelliJ\Main\new-webapp\.idea\workspace.xml: Error on line 1: Content is not allowed in prolog

Question

I have no clue what suddenly have happened. I restarted my Idea workspace and it popped up the following error:

Cannot convert project: C:\workspace_IntelliJ\Main\new-webapp.idea\workspace.xml: Error on line 1: Content is not allowed in prolog.

What does this error mean? I have checked my workspace.xml. Whenever I try to open it in an editor it displays the following (I believe it's broken):

nulnulnul

I have no clue what to change and how to fix this thing. Any help on this would be great!

Answer 1

Ok, I fixed the problem (not sure yet why the file got broken though). Step1: I created a new workspace and copied my source files and .idea files excluding workspace.xml. Infact I deleted it before copying it to new workspace.

It worked! guess deleting and re-creating was the option

Answer 2

Just remove workspace.xml file. It worked for me ;)

Answer 3

It looks like this problem can be fixed by opening up the .idea/workspace.xml file in a text editor and saving it specifically with UTF-8 encoding. This is possible using Sublime Text for example. This fixed the problem for me.