Re: HTTP transfer errors

Hi George,

On 6/9/2011 4:01 PM, George Neuner wrote:
On Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:40:48 -0700, D Yuniskis

(this is a RAR archive so
it puts the onus on WinRAR to Do The Right Thing... one less
variable to deal with!)

A number of versions of WinRAR are known to be buggy. Over the years
I've had a lot of problems unpacking what turned out to be *perfectly*
good archives.

Well, that seems to be the case with (at least some) of the examples
I've attempted. E.g., unrar it once and it complains. Unrar THE SAME
FILE a second time, and it doesn't. Third attempt might complain,
again, etc.

As if some variable was being used uninitialized (and "happened" to
end up with a "convenient" value one time the application loaded
and an *inconvenient* one, the next).

However, I could also attribute that to (possibly) flakey hardware.

While most of my "multiple copies of same download" files appear
to be identical, I did notice one instance where a single bit was
altered (0x9? -> 0xB?). I think we've agreed that HTTP shouldn't
let that happen.

So, either there's something flakey with the disk system (storage
*or* retrieval) *or* with the *processing* system (since WinRAR
is out of the picture in this "COMPare" operation).

May I suggest you get a copy of 7-zip - which handles RAR very well
- and try it on the suspect archives.

Yes, David (?) made a similar suggestion. It is installed on one of
the other machines, here (not "exposed). But, the act of copying the
suspect files to that other machine introduces another variable...

I should also download a more recent version of WinRAR as mine is from
~2000 (I've only had one client use this format previously so have not
had need to keep the tool up-to-date).

Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of a bit of demo work around the
house and getting out of that clutter is a prime concern for me,
now. So, I haven't had time to analyze this methodically. I'd
hate to get stuck jumping to conclusions and replacing things that
don't need replacement (e.g., sort of like troubleshooting a
dead car battery... replacing battery only to discover diodes in
alternator are fried)
.