The "Chinese" Files Problem

(Posted on August 8, 2007)

Only a few people have reported this problem to us, however it is likely that more people have experienced it, so we have posted this bulliten.

Sometimes, one of our newsgroup-downloading programs such as SuperNZB or NewzScape will create a weird file. The file will have Asian characters for the filename, no extension, will contain different kinds of data, and will not be in the downloads folder where normal files go.

These files are harmless unless you get a lot of them, in which case they can be a major problem.

It appears that these files will be created in the same folder where you have the program, or a shortcut/alias to the program. So, the quick fix is to create a special folder, and then put in that folder a shortcut/alias to the program and us it to launch the program. Any Chinese files that are created, will be easy to find and throw away.

Also, be sure to use the latest versions of our software, as several people have reported that they have either eliminated, or greatly reduced, the problem.

If you look inside one of these files with a word processor, you will see that they are newsgroup posts, or pieces of a post. These are extra files in that they may contain data that is the same as the "good" files going into your downloads folder. So, you can throw these files away and rest assured that you are not missing anything.

In our testing here, we have downloaded zillions of files and haven't gotten any Chinese files. Since we can't reproduce the problem, we can't track down its source and fix it. So we are dependant upon you to report as many details as possible when it happens to you. Send samples of the files and details about the news server, newsgroup, NZB file, etc., to support2@techsono.com.

We are pretty sure that these files are created as the result of a bug in the "TCP Socket" component of REALbasic, which is the programming language that our software is written in. A while ago, REAL Software, which makes REALbasic, added a feature to the socket component where the programmer can tell it where to save the data that it downloads. None of our programs use that feature. Our programs handle the data directly and write it directly into your downloads folder. However, the Chinese files started appearing after this feature was added to REALbasic, so we suspect that there is a bug.

In order for this problem to be fixed, we will have to send REAL Software a demo program that demonstrates the bug. However, since we can't make it happen, we can't make such a demo program. So, again, any clues you can send us are helpful.

Since the latest release of REALbasic (v2007r3), and the subsequent release of new versions of all of our programs, we have gotten fewer reports of Chinese files. We think that REAL Software's programmers tinkered with the code and made the problem better by accident. So, it is possible that the problem will eventually be fixed in this fashion, but we can't count on it. It would be great if REAL Software's programmers would look over the new code, but they are unlikely to do that unless they have what they consider to be solid evidence that a bug does exist.