Author Topic: MC fails to browse rar archives correctly  (Read 14217 times)

gezley

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MC fails to browse rar archives correctly
« on: October 10, 2014, 03:07:50 »
I am unable to browse all subfolders inside a RAR 5 archive created on Linux.

All files open correctly but most subfolders lower than the second or third level inside the archive do not open in MC. When I press Enter on them they open the default file manager instead, with no contents showing.

For example, these are some of the contents of an archive created in Linux, where rar is instructed to retain full paths:

/data/
  /adobe/
    /flash/
        /windows/
            /flash-installer.exe

Usually the first two or three levels will open properly, sometimes more, but the last subfolder level - in this case windows - does not open. Instead the default file manager on the computer opens but there is no flash-installer.exe in this file manager pane.

For reference, the archiving utilities WinRAR and Bandizip open the archive fully, as does Total Commander.

Mathias (Author)

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Re: MC fails to browse rar archives correctly
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2014, 09:08:38 »
I'm not able to recreate that.. It might depend on how the rar file is created. But I do not have any .rar files that fails like that.

gezley

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Re: MC fails to browse rar archives correctly
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2014, 19:31:58 »
Yes I should have provided more detail. Sorry about that.

The archive is created on Slackware Linux 64, with 64-bit Rar 5.11. I carry it around on my USB stick so encryption is important.

The command is as follows:

Code: [Select]
rar u -ma5 -as -ep2 -htb -m4 -md64m -ms -p -qo -r -rr5p \
    /data/private.rar @/data/files.lst

private.rar is the archive created and files.lst the list of files to be included.

Here is a description of the switches for convenience:

u        - add and update new files to archive;
-ma5  - use the new RAR5 format;
-as     - synchronize archive so that any files not listed in file
     list are deleted from archive;
-ep2   - store full paths
-htb    - use Blake2sp file checksums;
-m4    - compression level = good;
-md64m   - dictionary size = 64M;
-ms    - do not compress already-compressed files;
-p       - encrypt with password;
-qo     - add quick-open information;
-r        - recurse through subfolders;
-rr5p   - 5% recovery record;

Here is a sample path with the problem I describe:

D:\private.rar\data\office\ms-service-packs\office-{2000,2003,2007,2010,xp}

In Linux the path is:

/data/office/ms-service-packs/office-2000
/data/office/ms-service-packs/office-2003, etc.

In MC "private.rar" opens properly, as do "data", "office", and "ms-service-packs", but the five subfolders inside ms-service-packs do not open properly. Instead, they throw me out to the default system file manager, where the contents of these subfolders are not displayed.

Furthermore, the icon overlay for these subfolders is different. Attached is a screenshot showing this icon overlay and the subfolders which do not open.

The funny thing is, when I mimic the creation of this archive in Windows using WinRAR I have no problem opening it in MC.

Mathias (Author)

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Re: MC fails to browse rar archives correctly
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2014, 14:37:29 »
Sorry I do not have access to slackware and office server packs files.

If you have a minimum example file containing the error you can attach that. Then I can check it.

gezley

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Re: MC fails to browse rar archives correctly
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2014, 02:59:34 »
OK, this isn't a big deal and I don't want to tie you up solving it. I just wondered if you knew of the problem. It seems this is a problem with how I create the archive in Linux but I'm not sure what this problem is because I can use the same command in Windows and MC has no trouble opening the archive. (All my data is stored on a Slackware partition.)

Let's say I have a directory /data/digital-media/audio/foobar/ in Slackware which contains all the files foobar needs to run in portable mode on Windows. I recreate that directory in Windows as d:\digital-media\audio\foobar\ and place the same files in the folder.

When I create a small test.rar in Slackware, using the 64-bit command-line rar utility provided by RARLabs, MC can't open the last path in the archive (foobar). When I right-clcik on foobar I don't even get a context menu. When I try to open foobar I am thrown out to Windows Explorer with the following folder open and no contents:

C:\Users\Gerard\AppData\Local\Temp\_mc_\mc_6D81.tmp\foobar

When I use the 64-bit rar.exe on Windows 8, and the exact same switches, with just the path adjusted, MC has no problem opening the archive.

Slackware:
Code: [Select]
rar u -ma5 -as -ep2 -htb -m4 -md64m -ms -p -qo -r -rr5p \
    test.rar /data/digital-media/audio/foobar/
Windows:
Code: [Select]
rar.exe u -ma5 -as -ep2 -htb -m4 -md64m -ms -p -qo -r -rr5p \
    test.rar d:\digital-media\audio\foobar\