[comp.sys.mac.system] Okay, now I'm really pissed...

ta-dw30@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (David Worenklein) (05/17/91)

I was gonna call this article "Okay, now I'm pissed" but then my telecom
program crashed on me. That's what the "really" is for.

I managed to get System 7. Hooray for me! Of course, I missed a disk, so I
have to go back. Boy do I feel stupid. But that's not why I'm pissed. I can't
un-binhex the files! I keep getting CRC errors. Apparently, I'm not the only
one with this problem. Has anyone figured out what's going on?





===============================================================================
David C Worenklein      | No one could tell me where my soul might be;
Columbia College '93    | I searched for God, but he eluded me;
in the City of New York | I sought my brother out, and found all three. -Crosby

silvus@vauxhall.ece.cmu.edu (Gregory Lee Silvus) (05/19/91)

In article <1991May17.014019.11207@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> ta-dw30@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu writes:
>I can't
>un-binhex the files! I keep getting CRC errors. Apparently, I'm not the only

I had this problem w/files from sumex. The solution: By chance I tried
to unbinhex them using the unbinhex option in CompactPro (1.3 ?).
It worked!!

Perhaps CompactPro and BinHex have some discrepancies, and someone used
CompactPro instead of BinHex to binhex those files. Let me know if this
works, please.

gReg

Timothy.Allen@dartmouth.edu (Timothy Allen) (05/19/91)

In article <1991May18.203743.11869@fs7.ece.cmu.edu>
silvus@vauxhall.ece.cmu.edu (Gregory Lee Silvus) writes:

> In article <1991May17.014019.11207@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> ta-dw30@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu writes:
> >I can't
> >un-binhex the files! I keep getting CRC errors. Apparently, I'm not the only
> 
> I had this problem w/files from sumex. The solution: By chance I tried
> to unbinhex them using the unbinhex option in CompactPro (1.3 ?).
> It worked!!

I also had this problem once, using binhex4.  I tried binhex5 to
unbinhex the same file and all went well.  I have no idea what it
means.

tim.allen@dartmouth.edu

dplatt@ntg.com (Dave Platt) (05/20/91)

In article <1991May18.203743.11869@fs7.ece.cmu.edu> silvus@vauxhall.ece.cmu.edu (Gregory Lee Silvus) writes:
>I had this problem w/files from sumex. The solution: By chance I tried
>to unbinhex them using the unbinhex option in CompactPro (1.3 ?).
>It worked!!
>
>Perhaps CompactPro and BinHex have some discrepancies, and someone used
>CompactPro instead of BinHex to binhex those files. Let me know if this
>works, please.

There is a known bug, of long standing, in BinHex 4.0.  It is unable to
correctly decode files if the name in the encoded file's header is
longer than about 25 characters (it seems to vary, sometimes).  Binhex
4.0 gets out of sync, somehow, and reports a bogus CRC error.

The bug is in the BinHex 4.0 decoder... the encoded files are actually
valid, and can be decoded by programs that have robust decoders.
StuffIt and Compact Pro seem to have no problem with these files;
mcvert (on Unix) also works.



-- 
Dave Platt                                                VOICE: (415) 813-8917
              Domain: dplatt@ntg.com      UUCP: ...apple!ntg!dplatt
 USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2468 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303

dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) (05/25/91)

In article <1991May19.164714.4006@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Timothy.Allen@dartmouth.edu (Timothy Allen) writes:
>In article <1991May18.203743.11869@fs7.ece.cmu.edu>
>silvus@vauxhall.ece.cmu.edu (Gregory Lee Silvus) writes:
>
>> In article <1991May17.014019.11207@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> ta-dw30@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu writes:
>> >I can't
>> >un-binhex the files! I keep getting CRC errors. Apparently, I'm not the only
>> 
>> I had this problem w/files from sumex. The solution: By chance I tried
>> to unbinhex them using the unbinhex option in CompactPro (1.3 ?).
>> It worked!!
>
>I also had this problem once, using binhex4.  I tried binhex5 to
>unbinhex the same file and all went well.  I have no idea what it
>means.
>
>tim.allen@dartmouth.edu


When you download a file, you get mail header or news header
information at the top.  When the file is in multiple parts, you have
to concatenate the parts; you should remove all the excess header
garbage between the parts.  The various dehqxing programs will try to
skip over this garbage for you, and use slightly different algorithms
for doing so.  Sometimes they miss.

Solutions:  Try another program.  Or get in with your favorite text
editor and clean it up yourself.

BTW, note that the hqx information begins with a colon (:), ends with
a colon, and has no internal colons; all lines are exactly 64
characters wide (use Monaco 9 to check this) and contain only printing
characters, except the last line which may be short, or may have the colon
as the 65th character.

One of the programs around (I forget which) has trouble with long file
names.  The others don't.  This can also yield CRC errors.


-- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com)  I don't speak for my employer. --
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   When I was young, my family bought a color TV.  Our neigbors, who   |
| were poorer, had only a black-and-white set.  They bought a piece of  |
| cellophane, red on top, yellow in the middle, and blue on the bottom, |
| and taped it over their screen, so they could claim that they had a   |
| color TV, too.                                                        |
|   Now there's Windows 3.0.                                            |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------