So, I think the problem is you need to check the man page for XML::Parser. You're passing a file name to the "parse()" method, but you should be passing the file name to the "parsefile()" method. ("parse()" is expecting its argument to be an xml string or a file handle that you've already opened, not a file name.)

(update: apart from the lesson you've learned now about posting valid sample data, let me also suggest that you trim your code down to the minimal snippet needed to demonstrate the problem. I had to filter out all that database crud to see the error for myself, and only then did I realize that you were using the wrong method call.)