[Gmsh] Unhandled element 1 at line ... (higher order element issue?) while converting mesh gmshToFoam

[sourav.mandal at uliege.be]

Dear all,

I am trying to make a CFD mesh (unstructured) in Gmsh to be used in openFOAM. I use the `gmshToFoam` utility which works, but the problem is I lose all the boundary patches (physical groups) that I assign in Gmsh. I wish to automate the whole process using cli but as the boundary patches are lost when converting to foam, it is not possible anymore. 

I read in another forum that this is due to higher order elements, but no solution was provided. My question is - 
Is it possible to restrict the formation of elements to 1st order?

I get a list of error which probably points to that all the higher order elements are ignored (consequently openFOAM fails to read the boundary and physical group informations):

"
Unhandled element 1 at line 38931
Unhandled element 1 at line 38932
Unhandled element 1 at line 38933
Unhandled element 1 at line 38934
Unhandled element 1 at line 38935
Unhandled element 1 at line 38936
.
.
.
"

If you know any other ways to circumvent this issue, please intimate as well.
Thanks for your kind attention,

Regards,

Sourav Mandal
Biomechanics Research Unit, 
GIGA In Silico Medicine, 
University of Liège, Belgium
http://www.biomech.ulg.ac.be