Root element is missing

Question

I am reading xml from xxx URl but i am getting error as Root element is missing.

My code to read xml response is as follows:

  XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
  doc.Load("URL from which i am reading xml");
  XmlNodeList nodes = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Product");
  XmlNode node = null;
  foreach (XmlNode n in nodes)
   {
   }

and the xml response is as follows:

<All_Products>
   <Product>
  <ProductCode>GFT</ProductCode>
  <ProductName>Gift Certificate</ProductName>
  <ProductDescriptionShort>Give the perfect gift. </ProductDescriptionShort>
  <ProductDescription>Give the perfect gift.</ProductDescription>
  <ProductNameShort>Gift Certificate</ProductNameShort> 
  <FreeShippingItem>Y</FreeShippingItem>
  <ProductPrice>55.0000</ProductPrice>
  <TaxableProduct>Y</TaxableProduct>
   </Product>    
 </All_Products>

Can you please tell where i am going wrong.

Answer 1

Just in case anybody else lands here from Google, I was bitten by this error message when using XDocument.Load(Stream) method.

XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(xmlStream);  

Make sure the stream position is set to 0 (zero) before you try and load the Stream, its an easy mistake I always overlook!

if (xmlStream.Position > 0)
{
    xmlStream.Position = 0;
}
XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(xmlStream); 

Answer 2

Make sure you XML looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rootElement>
...
</rootElement>

Also, as noted at https://landesk378.rssing.com/chan-11533214/article34.html —

a blank XML file will return the same Root elements is missing exception. Each XML file must have a root element / node which encloses all the other elements.

Answer 3

Hi this is odd way but try it once

1. Read the file content into a string
2. print the string and check whether you are getting proper XML or not
3. you can use XMLDocument.LoadXML(xmlstring)

I try with your code and same XML without adding any XML declaration it works for me

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
        doc.Load(@"H:\WorkSpace\C#\TestDemos\TestDemos\XMLFile1.xml");
        XmlNodeList nodes = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Product");
        XmlNode node = null;
        foreach (XmlNode n in nodes)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("HI");
        }

As stated by Phil in below answer please set the xmlStream position to zero if it is not zero.

if (xmlStream.Position > 0)
{
    xmlStream.Position = 0;
}
XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(xmlStream); 

Answer 4

If you are loading the XML file from a remote location, I would check to see if the file is actually being downloaded correctly using a sniffer like Fiddler.

I wrote a quick console app to run your code and parse the file and it works fine for me.

Answer 5

1. Check the trees.config file which located in config folder... sometimes (I don't know why) this file became to be empty like someone delete the content inside... keep backup up of this file in your local pc then when this error appear - replace the server file with your local file. This is what i do when this error happened.

2. check the available space on the server. sometimes this is the problem.

Good luck.

Answer 6

I had the same problem when i have trying to read xml that was extracted from archive to memory stream.

 MemoryStream SubSetupStream = new MemoryStream();
        using (ZipFile archive = ZipFile.Read(zipPath))
        {
            archive.Password = "SomePass";
            foreach  (ZipEntry file in archive)
            {
                file.Extract(SubSetupStream);
            }
        }

Problem was in these lines:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.Load(SubSetupStream);

And solution is (Thanks to @Phil):

        if (SubSetupStream.Position>0)
        {
            SubSetupStream.Position = 0;
        }

Answer 7

In my case, I found application settings to be corrupted. So to solve it, simply delete folder in local appdata%appdata%/../Local/YOUR_APP_NAME.