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- Path: ultra.sonic.net!sonic!not-for-mail
- From: greg@sonic.net (Greg Seeger)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
- Subject: Help! Corrupt FIles!
- Date: 6 Jan 1996 13:49:25 -0800
- Organization: Sonoma Interconnect,707.528.8748,Shell$12/mo,Santa Rosa,CA(us)
- Message-ID: <4cmqp5$dbl@sonic.net>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: sonic.net
- Summary: Files being corrupted
- Keywords: files corrupt
- X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
-
- I am having the following problem and would greatly appreciate any
- thoughts, advice, hints, ideas, on how to solve it.
-
- * THE PROBELM *
-
- Once in a while, two files will become inaccessable. When the
- directory is checked the files have become huge, many giga-bytes
- in size, on a machine which does not have a drive that large.
- Thus, I'm assuming that the directory entry for those files
- is corrupted.
- * * * * * * * *
-
- More Facts in no particular order:
-
- 1. The two files are closely associated. One is an index, the other
- the data, and thus both are updated at (nearly) the same time.
-
- 2. The corrupted files CAN be deleted, and all is well (except of course
- for the lost data).
-
- 3. This problem only happens with a client using a Novell network. The
- program is running on straight DOS, other networks, and even on
- Xenix/Unix (re-compiled) and this problem has never appeared.
-
- 4. File locking is acheived by locking an additional "lock" file, rather
- than locking the files themselves. The lock file is never corrupted.
-
- 5. Data is never corrupted within the file itself, until the above
- described problem happens, and the entire file is lost.
-
- 6. The attribure "S" (sharable) has been set on all files using the
- Novell FLAG command.
-
- 7. This application is fairly mature, and has been running for many
- years.
-
- 8. Language: C.
-
- Compilers: DOS: Borland C++.
- Xenix: Microsoft C Compiler.
-
- Note though, that the version of the compiler has changed over
- time (originally written using Turbo C++ 1.0) yet the problem
- persists, so it doesn't seem to be compiler specific.
-
- I am the programmer who developed the application so have complete
- access to the internals (as well as the responsibility to find a
- solution).
-
- It may be that the program has some error in it that causes this
- problem, but I can't figure out what could cause such a problem.
- In fact, if I was asked to do this to a file, I wouldn't know
- how.
-
- It may be a problem with Novell, or even their particular version
- on Novell, but I have no way to test that. (I am a long ways from
- the client, and the problem is rare.)
-
- I would GREATLY appreciate any thoughts, hints or ideas. Feel free
- to email me if you wish.
-
- Thank you in advance,
- Greg
- greg@sonic.net
-
-
-
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