missing filters sometimes

[[e-mail]]

An Inkscape file of mine contains references to filters no longer there.

i noticed this while trying to import into Batik. Batik didnt like the missing filter definitions.

I dont know which operation resulted in the missing filters sadly.

Meanwhile, is there some way of cleaning up an SVG?

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> An Inkscape file of mine contains references to filters no longer there.

Did you _remove_ the filter effect in the filter editor dialog while it is still in use for some elements in the document?
Possibly a duplicate of
Bug #275662 “Filter stays in object's css property after Filter Effect dialog removal”
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/275662>

Known "workaround": to avoid such errors, do use 'Filters > Remove filter effects…' on selected objects, or deactivate active filters of selected objects in the filter editor, instead of (or before) completely deleting a filter definition in the editor.

> Meanwhile, is there some way of cleaning up an SVG?

That's beyond the scope of a bug tracker (for support questions, please use #inkscape, the user mailing list, Inkscape's 'Answers' section at Launchpad or the Inkscape Forum).

More information would help to answer the question: what exactly do you want to "clean up"?
- 'File > Vacuum defs…' removes unreferenced resources (definitions) like gradients, pattern, markers, filter effects, masks and clip-paths. Some resources are immediately deleted (auto-collected) when no longer referenced (gradients, patterns, filter effects), others only after applying 'Vacuum defs…' (sometimes it seems necessary to repeat 'Vacuum defs…' a second time: vacuum defs, save, revert, vacuum defs, save - at least in my experience, it looks like references can get kept in memory and only "freed" after reloading the file)).
- Save a copy as "Optimized SVG" can clean up the SVG for and optimize it e.g. for web usage - see the home page of 'Scour' for more details:
<http://www.codedread.com/scour/>
<http://www.codedread.com/scour/ops.php> (automatic operations)
<http://www.codedread.com/scour/#options> (configurable options)

[[e-mail] (joakim-verona)]

thanks for the info!

I didnt really manualy manipulate filters at all. What I did do was define a lot of rectangles to be used as text flowframes. Then I added som blur to some of them. Somewhere along the line a couple of filters got lost while moving the rectangles and changing them.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> What I did do was define a lot of rectangles to be used as text flowframes

Any additional information you can remember (steps to reproduce)?
Do you have the error messages from Batik still available, and the SVG file too (please attach)?

Possibly the blur filters got detached (and the unreferenced definitions auto-purged) when you converted flowed text into regular text? (Batik would not even open an Inkscape SVG file with flowed text or text flowed into a frame, complaining about "The current document is unable to create an element of the requested type (namespace: http://www.w3.org/2000/svg, name: flowRoot).").

[[e-mail] (joakim-verona)]

Thanks for your patience! I will try to create a reproducible testcase.
until then, heres more info:
- I changed the svg version to 1.1 so batik could open it just as an experiment
- batik couldnt render the flowroots so I unflowed them
- the actual error was a reference to a filter that didnt exist any more.

the references looked like this: filter:url(#filter2573-3)

I simply removed the references(with Emacs). Batik could then render the image.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Closing - no test case nor steps to reproduce available.

Please reopen the report if the error happens again with current Inkscape 0.91 - ideally, attach the affected SVG file (possibly there's an earlier version available too) and provide the list of steps which resulted in the unexpected purging of a filter definition that apparently was still referenced in the file.