Impossible to synchronize folders with accents

[Damien Lecan]

On Ubuntu in French, I try to synchronize /home/user/Vidéos/, but FFS raises the following error when I click on "Compare" :

"The following folder /home/user/Vidéos/ doesn't exist."

Notice the uggly accent encoding.

Originally from http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2953542&group_id=234430&atid=1093080

Here is the error message :
Directory does not exist: "/home/dlecan/Vidéos/"

You can ignore the error to consider not existing directories as empty.
Linux Error Code 2: No such file or directory

[Damien Lecan (dlecan)]

According to Zenju analysis, it's a bug in wxWidgets 2.8.

Somewhere in wxWidgets code there is a problem with conversion "UTF-8 -> wide character".
Perhaps there's somewhere a wxString::FromAscii() instead of wxString::FromUTF8()

Extract from wxWidgets 2.8 :
filePicker.h
void UpdatePath(const char *gtkpath){
  m_path = wxString::FromAscii(gtkpath);
}

It seems to be fixed by wxWidgets 2.9 (need to be confirmed).

[Damien Lecan (dlecan)]

See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/wxwidgets2.8/+bug/524293 for bug reported on wxWidgets packaging and http://trac.wxwidgets.org/ticket/11743 for wxWidgets project.

[administrator (apurimacxp)]

Hello,
i am new in ubuntu and using FreeFileSync. I am not sure that the problem i had is a bug but maybe it can help!
I report that i can't synchronise music files with character as "?", "(", ":", "." in the titles of the songs.
I report that i can't create a file during the synchronisation with also the same types of characters in the name of the source file.
I get this messages of error for those 2 problems:
Attention : La synchronisation a échoué pour 58 élément(s) :

[11:57:09] Erreur: Erreur lors de l'écriture du fichier :
                   "/media/PACKARDBELL/Musique/JACQUES BREL/JACQUES_BREL-l'integrale_cd_04-SCD/01 - La valse ?? mille temps.mp3.ffs_tmp"
                   Linux Error Code 22: Argument invalide

[11:57:13] Erreur: Erreur lors de l'écriture du fichier :
                   "/media/PACKARDBELL/Musique/JACQUES BREL/JACQUES_BREL-l'integrale_cd_05-SCD/08 - Les pr?noms de Paris.mp3.ffs_tmp"
                   Linux Error Code 22: Argument invalide

Is it something newed?
best regards.

[11:57:14] Erreur: Erreur lors de l'écriture du fichier :
                   "/media/PACKARDBELL/Musique/JACQUES BREL/JACQUES_BREL-l'integrale_cd_06-SCD/01 - Introduction - Les pr?noms de Paris.mp3.ffs_tmp"
                   Linux Error Code 22: Argument invalide
et l'erreur:
[13:21:48] Erreur: Erreur lors de la création d'un répertoire :
                   "/media/PACKARDBELL/Musique/Jethro Tull/M.U.: The Best of Jethro Tull"
                   Linux Error Code 22: Argument invalide

[Damien Lecan (dlecan)]

Hum, that is maybe the same bug, but not sure.

Does the file exists with "?" ?
/media/PACKARDBELL/Musique/JACQUES BREL/JACQUES_BREL-l'integrale_cd_05-SCD/08 - Les pr?noms de Paris.mp3

Or is it 'é' instead of '?' ?
/media/PACKARDBELL/Musique/JACQUES BREL/JACQUES_BREL-l'integrale_cd_05-SCD/08 - Les prénoms de Paris.mp3

[Zenju (zenju)]

I can't reproduce this issue on Ubuntu v10.4: Just copied a file named "01 - La valse ?? mille temps.mp3 ::)) ( . ; --- ..." without problems.
My assumption is your target file system, perhaps a FAT USB stick, does not support these characters. Did you try copying these files by other means like "cp" or your default file manager and what was the result?

[administrator (apurimacxp)]

@ Damien Lecan:
the file doesn't exist with "?". You bet, is it "é" normally instead of "?". I didn't control that when i got that file with Transmission. and i don't know why i get those "?" in place of all the "é" or "è" in the titles of the song.

@ Zenju:
My target "PACKARDBELL" is an usb external hard disk in FAT. I Try to copy with the default file manager Nautilus (i am with gnome) a file from "my account"/Musique/Test/ok?man.mp3 to the external HD. That way works without problem but on the external HD the file is name PACKARDBELL/Musique/Test/ok_man.mp3 .

I don't know how to understand those result. Bug or problem with my external device.
Thanks.

[Zenju (zenju)]

>My target "PACKARDBELL" is an usb external hard disk in FAT.
Definitively the problem here: FAT doesn't support characters '?', etc... Unfortunately the error message isn't very descriptive, but that's how I receive it directly from the Linux C-API. Using console "cp" command shows the same result (and error message).

>That way works without problem
The file manager obviously renames these files to "solve" the invalid character issue. But that isn't a viable solution for a synchronizaiton program.

[administrator (apurimacxp)]

Ok Zenju, thanks for your answers and i apologize for disturbing...FreeFileSync is still very usefull for me and simple to use.
Thanks for your contribution.

[Damien Lecan (dlecan)]

Fixed by wxWidgets 2.8.11 (released with Ubuntu 10.10)