Testing .pa archives
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W10 Pro 22H2 - 64 -bit
PA 22.00.06 (PA 2023)
It has been the case with previous versions of PowerArchiver, but I had hoped that the latest might behave differently. Not so, I’m afraid.
I have, for various obscure reasons, created a few .pa archives, mainly in the hope that they will save me some more space. From time to time, I use the “Test” option to check that important archives are OK and uncorrupted.
With every .pa archive I’ve tested, the process runs through OK but then reports that there are errors. This is always the number of files in the archive e.g. if 11 files, then 11 errors reported.
In the .pa, I can:-
- preview the files (usually PDF)
- extract some or all files and look at or use them
- convert the .pa to a .zip or .zipx archive, which then works fine and tests without errors
Is it the case that the Test routine isn’t designed for .pa archives, or is there another reason? Although the .pa seems to function properly, despite the test reporting errors, I would like to be sure that every .pa is OK and not “broken”.
Some of the .pas are quite old and produced with earlier PA versions (they are truly “archives”). If I extract all the files in the old .pa, create a new, fresh .pa and add back the files to that, then test the new, no errors (at least in the .pa I’ve tried this on) are reported. This would suggest a mismatch between old .pas and newer versions of PA itself.
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@pa_fan I’ve had another look at this, and run a test or two.
If I create new .pa archives, and add a representative sample of different file types, using various options (Solid archive, paths etc.) and then test them, I see no errors.
I’m assuming that the errors I have had are down to something like failed CRC checks or similar.
As I mentioned, the .pa archives that produce these errors are older ones and produced with some very old versions of PA. I think that there is some sort of mismatch at work here, between old archives and more recent version(s) of PA.
I don’t have that many old .pas around, as I have converted most to other formats, mostly .zipx. However, with the few that I still have available, some produce errors and others don’t. If I extract all files from a .pa which gives errors, and then reload them into a new .pa, they will not produce errors.
I think the answer lies in my previous paragraph, and, as the files themselves, when out of the archive are apparently undamaged, I’ll just recreate the few .pas that aren’t AOK.
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Last time I reported this they said that test by right clicking the file in Windows Explorer and choosing PowerArchiver / Test on the menu worked properly but doing Actions / Test from inside PowerArchiver behaved as you describe, giving errors. At that time they seemed to be correct.
So try right clicking the file in Windows Explorer and choosing PowerArchiver / Test instead.
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@brian-gregory
Thanks. I’ll give it a try. -
@brian-gregory That works, but looking at your other thread on this subject, it still isn’t fixed in the main interface. I’ve just about converted all .pa files to other formats, as even though the context test works, I’m not happy about the myriad errors thrown up by the other test.
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@pa_fan said in Testing .pa archives:
@brian-gregory That works, but looking at your other thread on this subject, it still isn’t fixed in the main interface. I’ve just about converted all .pa files to other formats, as even though the context test works, I’m not happy about the myriad errors thrown up by the other test.
Correct. After answering you I re-tested and reported that it’s not fixed in my other thread.
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Thanks for checking up @PA_Fan and @Brian-Gregory
We did reproduce the issue and there is a difference in results when testing .PA files through shell and main interface that should not be there. It is logged in for fixing in an upcoming update.thanks again!
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@mili Still wrong in PA 2023 22.00.08.
