Unicode error prevents me from saving the file

My colleague (Windows user) gave me (Mac user, with Igor Pro 6.37) an Igor .pxp file with a filename containing Chinese characters. I couldn't open it until I removed all Chinese characters in the filename. After I modified a graph (including redoing some analysis) in the file, now I cannot save it. Error messages are: 

"An error occurred while trying to access the folder associated with the symbolic path 'home'."

Followed by:

"Can't convert a Unicode file path to a system file path."

I tried to save the graph as .txt by clicking Graph > Packages > Save Graph, but encountered the same error messages.

What can I do to force saving this graph (with data)?

You don't say what version of Igor you are running.

Igor 6 and before can not save a file that uses characters that are not supported by the current system locale. On Windows the locale is also called "Language for non-Unicode programs". In Igor terminology this is the "system text encoding".

For example, if your system text encoding is MacRoman (Western European), as it is for most American and European Mac users, file names can use only characters supported by MacRoman. This excludes Asian characters.

This also applies to the path to the file in question. In Igor6 and before the entire path must use system text encoding.

Igor 7 and Igor 8 are Unicode-based and this is not an issue.

I think if you change the file name to remove non-European characters and you move the file such that the path to it requires only European characters, you will then be able to save it in Igor 6.

If that does not solve the problem then I need to know what Igor version you are using, what OS version you are using, and I will also need a sample file that shows the problem so I can investigate. You can post the file here or send it to support@wavemetrics.com.

 

In rereading your post I see that you do say that you are running Igor Pro 6.37 on Macintosh so pardon my error.

The rest of my post above still applies.

 

In reply to by hrodstein

I am using Igor Pro 6.37 on macOS 10.10.4. I cannot provide this problematic file since it could not be saved. However, after I quit Igor Pro "without saving" and reopened this file, I found that somehow my modification was already saved!

When I modified again the original file my colleague gave me to try to reproduce the problem, I failed, i.e., the problem was gone.

All my Igor files are saved in folders with English names (MacRoman characters). I still don't understand what happened to cause those error messages. Sorry for not being able to reproduce and examine the problem.