Importing ReaperConfigZip file error

[talustalus]

Hi
I get the attached error when trying to import configuration on Windows 10. The config was exported from a mac computer.

Why is Reaper having trouble reading this file?

[MusoBob]

Rename it to .Zip and see if you can open it manually as a zip

[Magicbuss]

New DAW Build and I'm getting this same error trying to import my config.

So I converted it to a zip and extracted it.

OK thats great, now i have a folder with all my reaper configs in multiple sub-folders and loose files. What do I do with that?

What was supposed to be a one click import is now what... a one by one file import???

WHY DID MY CONFIG EXPORT/IMPORT NOT WORK?!?!?! This seems like a BASIC feature. To say I'm pissed is an understatement.

[MusoBob]

If you Options > Show REAPER resource path..
it will show where those folders from the ConfigZip go.

[Magicbuss]

Originally Posted by MusoBob

If you Options > Show REAPER resource path..
it will show where those folders from the ConfigZip go.

Yeah, I get it. But then what the hell is the point of the config import? It doesnt work.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Is there a file called reaper-configzip-info in the zip-file? If yes, could you post this as an attachement?

Edit:
And a list of all filenames with their paths from the ReaperConfigZip-file, so I can check, whether it's a filename problem somewhere.

[Magicbuss]

Originally Posted by Meo-Ada Mespotine

Is there a file called reaper-configzip-info in the zip-file? If yes, could you post this as an attachement?

Edit:
And a list of all filenames with their paths from the ReaperConfigZip-file, so I can check, whether it's a filename problem somewhere.

Thanks. I'll take a look and post it when I get home today.

[Magicbuss]

OK so the config-info file is entirely in what looks like chinese characters. WTH? Here's a sample.

䱆䝁⁓潣普杩硥挠桴浥⁥牰獥瑥映捸慨湩樠敳晦捥⁴整灭慬整業捳挠牵潳歲祥慭⁰敭畮⁳捡楴湯⁳捡楴湯牳慥敭 畮敳獴挠慨浮灡⁳敲獡牣灩⁴慬杮慰正⁳敭楤

[Icchan]

First:

Config Import has never failed on me and I've used it extensively over many years, most recently two weeks ago. So it's possible that your config file is just corrupted.

Many people mismanage their files and over time they'll find out that they're completely useless. I don't know what you've done or how you manage your files. Do you have a robust backup solution, do you use CRC sums for critical files (like REAPER configs), do you use versioning as you should? Or did you just throw the file on a USB stick/disk, removed the disk without disconnecting the USB stick first properly and stored it for years and forgot about it till now...

I don't know what could have happened, so it could be anything really

So it could be just corrupted by pure chance or by error.

If you believe it's not corrupted, upload that config file so we can test it as well. If we can't reproduce your issue, then we can start figuring out what's going on. If the file's fine and we also get an error, then we can figure out if it's a bug.

Second:
If you're not using Notepad++ for opening that file, you need to install Noptepad++ and do so. Windows Notepad is pure BS and shouldn't be used for opening anything, let alone text or config files.

Third:
The Chinese characters are possibly there because the file is (at least it's on my system) utf-8 encoded and Windows crappy notepad can't understand it. Notepad++ can.

Or your system character set is for what ever reason not utf-8 capable... I have no clue about your system setup or localization so I can't know every little detail.

Start with the Notepad++ and by uploading the config for us to test.

[Magicbuss]

The config file was created last weekend in preparation for my new DAW build. The export process went as expected. I ended up with a 2gb config file.

Reaper cant open the file. When I convert it to zip all the data is there (and the file sizes look correct) but once extracted the file sizes are ZERO. There are header errors during the extraction. The file is obviously corrupt. So... reaper Created a corrupt config file that is now useless to me.

Next time I'll just copy the whole damn reaper data directory manually.

Notepad++ can read the config info file. There are a TON of NUL entries randomly spread throughout the text. Not sure what that means but it doesnt look good.

[akademie]

Originally Posted by Magicbuss

...<snip>
I ended up with a 2gb config file.
<snip>...

I would bet that this can be the problem (2 or rather over 2 GB limit)?

Is it that big because of FXChains and media databases?

Try to open a [u]copy ![/b] of the config file it in ZIP/RAR application and delete some of the big files to get the final file under 2GB to test if then it will load in Reaper.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Originally Posted by Magicbuss

The config file was created last weekend in preparation for my new DAW build. The export process went as expected. I ended up with a 2gb config file.

Reaper cant open the file. When I convert it to zip all the data is there (and the file sizes look correct) but once extracted the file sizes are ZERO. There are header errors during the extraction. The file is obviously corrupt. So... reaper Created a corrupt config file that is now useless to me.

Next time I'll just copy the whole damn reaper data directory manually.

Notepad++ can read the config info file. There are a TON of NUL entries randomly spread throughout the text. Not sure what that means but it doesnt look good.

This is expected. From my first glance it looks properly. I would also say that there's probably a problem with the size of the zip file.

Can you post a list of all filenames with their filesizes from the zip-file?
Maybe we can give you some advice on how to manage the stuff in the future (and find the problem so we can report them).

Oh, and one more question: extracting it to the Resourcefolder by hand worked without a problem or are there any issues like missing or broken files?
If that works, it's probably a zip-fileread problem on Reaper's side.

[Magicbuss]

Thanks for all the help so far everyone!

OK, so my config file contains all of these wav files (mostly commercial songs that I must have been using for references). I have no idea why they are there. I just checked off everything in the config export dialog and I ended up with a bunch of files I didnt need or want. For reference, I just exported the config on my recording laptop (portable install) and it was only 78mb.

So I can just delete files from an archive without causing problems? Thats news to me but its worth a shot.

I'll start with those wav files and see what happens.

[Magicbuss]

Unfortunately the archive is read only. I tried deleting files from the original reaper configzip, converting it to zip and Rar and none of them let me delete anything due to being read-only.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Where were the wav-files located?

You can create a new zip file and copy all files from the original ReaperConfigZip to the new one and just exclude the wav-files.
The importer-dialog might show errors when it tries to import the missing wav-files, but this depends on the location of them and shouldn't be a problem.

[Magicbuss]

The wav files were in the Project Templates folder.

[Magicbuss]

I was able to copy SOME of the files to a new zip - most notably my mixing template. Unfortunately most files would not copy due to header errors. So I lost all my mouse modifiers, track templates, screensets, custom actions, sws auto color, FX folder organization (UGH....) etc.

This sucks... but at least I was able to salvage something.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Could you upload the file somewhere? Maybe there's more to rescue.

[Magicbuss]

Let me see what I can do. My dropbox and Google drives are close to max. Maybe my Box account has room for 2+ gb...

[akademie]

Boys (and girls),
isn't ZIP format restricted (limited) to 2 GB maximum of one volume?
If so that would mean that the OP's file should be even bigger but stopped at 2GB size and that is why OP cannot even copy all files out of the original file (even that the list of files is already written in TOC of archive file).

EDIT: If true, then it would be a bug in Reaper, which should make archive volumes or give error warning when writting over 2 GB zip file format. That's for sure.
Hmm, maybe it is not as hard to test, if it only requires to copy approx 3GB of WAV files to ProjectTemplates folder.

[Magicbuss]

Originally Posted by akademie

Boys (and girls),
isn't ZIP format restricted (limited) to 2 GB maximum of one volume?
If so that would mean that the OP's file should be even bigger but stopped at 2GB size and that is why OP cannot even copy all files out of the original file (even that the list of files is already written in TOC of archive file).

EDIT: If true, then it would be a bug in Reaper, which should make archive volumes or give error warning when writting over 2 GB zip file format. That's for sure.
Hmm, maybe it is not as hard to test, if it only requires to copy approx 3GB of WAV files to ProjectTemplates folder.

Yes the file is over 2gb. I have tried multiple zip file recovery tools and all of them restore only the files that I have been able to manually recover from the original archive. The header errors are insurmountable.

There is a possibility I could recover more files using a hex editor except that it would take me longer to learn how to use a hex editor than it would to recreate my config manually.

I was also able to salvage some more of my config from a portable install on my recording laptop.

Thanks for all the help everybody but at this point I am just going to recreate the configs I'm missing from scratch. I will immediately export when done and test the restore on a portable install.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

@MagicBuss
Using a hexeditor will probably not help, as the zip-file is probably compressed. So you would need to revert the compression by hand and believe me: you don't want that.
And I think, it's probably simply lost, sadly.

I opened a bugreport on that, so please keep an eye on that if the devs have any questions about the problem:

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread....53#post2342353

[JamesPeters]

Originally Posted by akademie

isn't ZIP format restricted (limited) to 2 GB maximum of one volume?

It doesn't seem that way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_(file_format)#Limits

Also I have a couple zip files which are greater than 2GB. They're fine.

[akademie]

Posted already in Bug report thread here
REAPER Bug Reports > ReaperConfigZip has 2GB limit?
but here I am double-posting it for completion of the idea flow in this thread...

Tested here in Windows10 x64 and REAPER v6.13.

I did put few big files (RARs and ZIPs) into ProjectTemplate folder, then exported config (all items checked).
It took a while and finished sucessfully by Reaper telling that it was done and config contains 2055 files. (approx 2,6GB).

Then the file size is really 2,6GB.
But renaming to ZIP and trying to open in WinRAR v5.01 (64bit) gives error warning on opening the file:
"test2_over2gig.ReaperConfigZip.zip: Unexpected end of archive"
and content displayed in WinRAR is missing lot of folders of course.

Trying to open the same archive in Windows Explorer by double-clicking ends with error message:
"Compressed folder (ZIP method) test2_over2gig.ReaperConfigZip.zip is invalid"
(note that the message is my translation from Czech version of Windows, so not exact as in EN/US version).

So, REAPER definitely does something wrong or in a strange way at least.

Please, fix or display error message when creating such big invalid archives.

[Icchan]

This is probably not the way these config zips were supposed to be used (to store huge amounts of data), but anyway... it's an edge case and is a bug. Please make a proper bug report about it.

What we can learn from all this is: have proper backup solution. I have all my configs saved from the past ~3 years, date and REAPER version added to the file name so I can identify them easily. This is such that if something breaks or I lose a config, I don't have to roll back all the way to the beginning and I can look at the differences to figure out if particular setting creates issues.

People, backups are not a joke.

[JamesPeters]

I started zipping everything in the Reaper resource folder instead, a couple years ago. This was when I realized ReaPack info wasn't saved along with Reaper's backup file (and it caused a headache restoring the info). Turns out that zipping everything in the resource folder is quite easy. There's a chance there'll be a conflict with a later version of Reaper, but then I'd just install the new version "overtop" (and also I can move files out of the folder such as all the .ini files) to see what's "broken".

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Originally Posted by Icchan

Please make a proper bug report about it.

Already did one, as akademie linked in his post. ^^

[Magicbuss]

Originally Posted by Icchan

This is probably not the way these config zips were supposed to be used (to store huge amounts of data), but anyway... it's an edge case and is a bug. Please make a proper bug report about it.

What we can learn from all this is: have proper backup solution. I have all my configs saved from the past ~3 years, date and REAPER version added to the file name so I can identify them easily. This is such that if something breaks or I lose a config, I don't have to roll back all the way to the beginning and I can look at the differences to figure out if particular setting creates issues.

People, backups are not a joke.

Yes, this is a cautionary tale from someone who had literally ZERO issues with Reaper over the 10 year span of my previous DAW PC. Reaper just worked. I never had to think about backing up the config or testing it until it was time to upgrade. I foolishly thought that the config export would also just work - without testing it! (dumb). Lesson learned!

If there is an actual bug that I have inadvertently uncovered than all the better. Lets make sure no one CAN make the same mistake I did again. In the end it cost me some time... but I'm just a hobbyist. If I was a pro this would definitely have cost me money due to down time.