Thursday, August 10, 2006

Report an Apple bug .... Thursday?

I don't usually uncover enough Apple bugs to actually remember to do RAABF, so you get RAABT.

Filed as 4675523


Summary:
Extremely long file names can cause copy operations to FAT32 filesystems to fail silently without any warning if multibyte characters are present in the file name.


Steps:
1) Produce a long (250+ character) file name with multibyte characters, such as:
"05 V. 1 Im Tempo Des Scherzo. Wild herausfahrend - 2 Langsam - 3 Langsam - 4 (Trombone) - 5 Im Anfang sehr zurückgehalten - 6 Wiedersehr breit - 7 Ritenuto - 8 Wieder zurückhaltend - 9 Sehr langsam und gedehnt (_der grosse Appell_) - 10 Langsam. Mis.m4a"
2) Place the file in a folder
3) copy the folder to a FAT32 volume
4) try and open the file from the FAT32 volume

Expected results:
The file opens and is usable.

Actual results:
The file probably vanishes upon the first click, preventing a double click. If you manage to double-click, the file will "not be found."

Regression:
None known.

Workarounds:
Don't use long file names with multibyte characters. Note that this has a potential data loss impact for users, particularly when copying music libraries, as multibyte characters and the classical genre seem to be joined at the hip on my machine.