Author Topic: Broken pk3s  (Read 5830 times)

Undeference

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Broken pk3s
« on: October 12, 2012, 08:59:28 pm »
On 5 Feb 2013 this post was updated to add a link to the paklist bot page and update the list of similarly named URLs
Partially updated on 23 Jun 2013

tl;dr version: these files are broken and should be removed or replaced by non-broken versions, and people hosting large numbers of pk3s should be more careful in the future

While working on a super secret project, I found that a lot of the pk3 files on various sites are broken. In many cases, the file was most likely copied/uploaded incorrectly or incompletely (it's a good idea to verify the file after uploading it), and in a few cases the error was amplified by other sites copying those invalid/incomplete files. But for some of the pk3s, the only copies "I" know of are broken, so the mapmaker/modder/whatever's original pk3 was probably broken and in most cases could have simply been fixed with `zip -FF` (it appears that some programs routinely omit EOCD signature).

First a few notes
  • Tremulous is pretty forgiving when it comes to broken pk3s, so you might not realize that your pk3 is broken
  • Where there were problems with multiple pk3s with the same name (ignoring case), I included an anchor to the location on http://betaserv.tk/paklist.html for the pk3s with that name. This does not mean all of those files are affected or even the same; in fact, unless I copied wrong, this should be a pretty complete list, meaning that other files with the same name on http://betaserv.tk/paklist.html are not affected (as of 2012-10-12, but this could change)
  • Sites often have multiple copies of the same file where the only difference is case. Sometimes, however, they are actually different files. This is very misleading. See the list near the bottom of this post.

Too short
Most likely cause is an incomplete copy (or a misbehaving server terminating downloads prematurely)

Missing end-of-central-directory signature
Some programs routinely generate files missing EOCD signature, but this is in fact an error


Bad signature
Most likely the pk3 was modified by a broken program

CRC error
Most likely cause is a corrupt upload or download

These files have essentially the same name but different contents excluding files with other errors
(as MD5 checksum then URI)

Finally, I mentioned that these are PK3s "I" know about. By that, I mean URIs listed at http://betaserv.tk/paklist.html. Any files not listed there, are not known about and not listed. If files on your site are not listed but should be, contact me. The bot identifies itself as "paklist".)
« Last Edit: June 23, 2013, 10:25:22 pm by Undeference »
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ULTRA Random ViruS

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Re: Broken pk3s
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2012, 06:39:26 am »
There was a corrupted map that i had that screwed up all/most shaders from default maps because the author had included the shader files in his pk3. I forgot what it was called so i guess i'm no help. Although the shaders work perfectly when running the map itself. It's just that i couldn't play default maps while it existed in my directory. I deleted it.

Also there's a map which doesn't belong on tremulous called z-lan-party.pk3 or something like that. I think it was meant for quake or urban terror and was missing things like spectator camera spawn positions. I've also deleted mine obviously.

/dev/humancontroller

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Re: Broken pk3s
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2012, 07:01:40 am »
There was a corrupted map that i had that screwed up all/most shaders from default maps because the author had included the shader files in his pk3. I forgot what it was called so i guess i'm no help. Although the shaders work perfectly when running the map itself. It's just that i couldn't play default maps while it existed in my directory.
irrelevant (the current definition of broken has nothing to do with conflicting shader definitions).


Little*Butterfly

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Re: Broken pk3s
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2012, 09:08:55 am »
I have removed the broken maps from http://xserverx.com/base
Thank you Undeference

Undeference

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Re: Broken pk3s
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2012, 02:01:18 am »
There was a corrupted map that i had that screwed up all/most shaders from default maps because the author had included the shader files in his pk3. I forgot what it was called so i guess i'm no help. Although the shaders work perfectly when running the map itself. It's just that i couldn't play default maps while it existed in my directory.
Maybe I'll also warn about conflicts eventually

Quote
Also there's a map which doesn't belong on tremulous called z-lan-party.pk3 or something like that.
map_Z-LANparty2k3.pk3? It does contain an arena file with type = "ffa", but that's not detected yet

s/aplha/alpha/
Fixed

I have removed the broken maps from http://xserverx.com/base
Aside from the close file name warning which still applies, the references to those files have been removed for now (at least until I do a full update)
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