kitao/pyxel · error

No tileset found in file '{path}'

Error message

No tileset found in file '{path}'

What it means

parse_tmx found a `<map>` element with no `<tileset>` child at all. The parser requires at least one tileset because it needs `firstgid` and `columns` to convert TMX global tile IDs into Pyxel tilemap coordinates. This happens when the TMX stores tilesets in separate .tsx files (external tilesets are still emitted as `<tileset>` elements, but malformed maps or hand-written XML may omit them).

Source

Thrown at crates/pyxel-core/src/tmx_parser.rs:68

pub fn parse_tmx(path: &str, layer_index: u32) -> Result<RcTilemap, String> {
    let err = |msg| format!("{msg} '{path}'");

    // Load and validate the TMX layer.
    let mut file = File::open(path).map_err(|_| err("Failed to open file"))?;
    let mut tmx_text = String::new();
    file.read_to_string(&mut tmx_text)
        .map_err(|_| err("Failed to read file"))?;

    let tmx: TmxMap = serde_xml_rs::from_str(&tmx_text).map_err(|_| err("Failed to parse file"))?;

    if tmx.tilewidth != TILE_SIZE || tmx.tileheight != TILE_SIZE {
        return Err(err("Invalid tile size in file"));
    }

    let tileset = tmx
        .tilesets
        .first()
        .ok_or_else(|| err("No tileset found in file"))?;
    let columns = tileset
        .columns
        .ok_or_else(|| err("No embedded tileset in file"))?;

    let layer = tmx
        .layers
        .get(layer_index as usize)
        .ok_or_else(|| format!("Layer {layer_index} not found in file '{path}'"))?;
    if layer.data.encoding != "csv" {
        return Err(err("Unsupported encoding in file"));
    }

    let tile_ids: Vec<u32> = remove_whitespace(&layer.data.tiles)
        .split(',')
        .map(|s| s.parse::<u32>().map_err(|_| err("Failed to parse file")))
        .collect::<Result<_, _>>()?;

    // Convert TMX global tile IDs into Pyxel image tile coordinates.

View on GitHub (pinned to 50f9bd7778)

Solutions

1. Open the TMX file and confirm the <map> contains at least one <tileset firstgid=...> element
2. Re-export the map from Tiled with the tileset embedded in the .tmx file
3. If the tileset is external (.tsx), inline it or pre-process the XML to insert the tileset element before calling parse_tmx
4. Validate the TMX against the Tiled DTD/schema to catch missing required elements

Example fix

// before: map with no tileset
<map version="1.10" tilewidth="16" tileheight="16">
  <layer .../>
</map>
// after: embed the tileset
<map version="1.10" tilewidth="16" tileheight="16">
  <tileset firstgid="1" name="tiles" tilewidth="16" tileheight="16" columns="8"/>
  <layer .../>
</map>

fn has_tileset(tmx_path: &str) -> std::io::Result<bool> {
    let xml = std::fs::read_to_string(tmx_path)?;
    Ok(xml.contains("<tileset"))
}

if !has_tileset(path)? {
    eprintln!("{path}: embed a <tileset> in the TMX before parsing");
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling parse_tmx(path, layer_index) (directly or via from_tmx) on a TMX file whose `<map>` element contains zero `<tileset>` entries — tmx.tilesets.first() returns None.

Common situations: Hand-authored or programmatically generated TMX without a tileset element; a map that only references tilesets through objects/image layers stripped out by the deserializer; exporting from a tool with 'embed tilesets' disabled combined with post-processing that removed the tileset tags.

Related errors

• No embedded tileset in file '{path}'
• Unsupported encoding in file '{path}'
• Failed to open file '{path}'
• Failed to read file '{path}'
• Failed to parse file '{path}'

AI-assisted analysis of kitao/pyxel@50f9bd7778 (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/337ddc59c782971a. Report an issue: GitHub.