Troubleshooting

The problem most often reported to me is that, after transferring an archive to another machine — for example, an IBM — it is no longer unzippable. I have never been able to find a circumstance in which this is true, so I think that in these cases, the problem lies in the transfer process. Here are a few things to try if you are not able to unzip ZipIt-created archives on your IBM:

• Are you using MacBinary in your terminal program? Make sure that you tell your terminal program not to use MacBinary when transmitting the zip file. Note that this is different from telling ZipIt whether or not to use MacBinary when zipping the files.
• Are you sending the archive in text or binary mode? Some terminal programs allow you to specify — make sure binary is chosen, but not MacBinary.
• Try sending the archive over with a different terminal or transfer protocol. If you were using ZModem, try YModem or XModem-1K.
• Have you tried using a diskette to transfer the zip archive? Put in a disk, initialize it with Apple File Exchange or an equivalent program, then copy the zip archive onto the disk using no translations.
• Try transferring the archive to your other computer and then back to your Mac. Make sure that MacBinary is turned off both times (when sending and receiving from the Mac end). Can ZipIt still open the file, or did it get corrupted somewhere in between?

Another frequently reported problem is that ZipIt crashes in, or immediately after, the “Open…” dialog box. Invariably, this is caused by a system extension that interferes with ZipIt’s method of looking inside files to determine if they are zip files. If this happens to you, choose “Preferences->Miscellaneous” from the File menu and turn off the “Look inside files…” option.

If files are unusable after unzipping them on the Macintosh end, make sure that the LF button is off (hollow) for that file. This will insure that linefeeds are not stripped when unzipping the file.

If you still can’t figure out the problem, please contact me and I’ll be glad to help you out. It would be helpful if, along with your problem report, you would send me a copy of the zip archive with which you are having problems. If you find a bug in ZipIt, please tell me your complete system setup, including extensions, system version, and hardware. Again, it would be helpful if you included a copy of the zip archive that instigated the problem.

Known Problems

These are bugs which have been reported, but not tracked down. If you experience any of these, please tell me your system setup and exactly when the problems occur. I was unable to reproduce or verify any of these bug reports.

• Possible erroneous reporting of “Not enough disk space available,” but I haven’t been able to reproduce this one.
• Possible incompatibilities with FileGuard.
• When multiple zip archives are open, and you try to extract files from the frontmost window, I have had reports of crashes. Again, I was unable to reproduce this.
• Repeat the following steps: Add files, save, remove, save. Eventually, the zip file is reported to get corrupted. (Unable to reproduce)
• Within an AppleEvent, ZipIt may, after a while, start saving files to the root directory.