"Version Information Malformed"

[grindax]

Is it possible to make this error message more useful, e.g. say what is actually wrong with the file and whether this has affected BC's ability to accurately compare the file.

It's confusing to see this error message when BC appears to extract and display the version information successfully anyway.

I see this error if I open the executable file (pycharm.exe) for the current version of PyCharm (v3.1.3) in BC's Version Compare mode. I can see all the info -- why am I told that it's "malformed"?

[Aaron]

Our error messaging could be improved, but there is something malformed with that specific file. The File Version info isn't parsing correctly in BC4, since the .exe is returning that the total length of that field is much shorter than the field is. We'll look into better handling this scenario, and see if we can improve our error text. Thanks for the example case.

[grindax]

We'll look into better handling this scenario

I just tried opening the PyCharm executable in BC4's version compare, just to see if any improvements/fixes have been made in this area, and I see that the "Version Information Malformed" message is still displayed.

[Aaron]

I added this .exe to our set of example cases. When we work on enhancing our Version Compare it will be part of our test cases. In the meantime, the error message is technically correct: the file is malformed. We just aren't able to present more detail for the error message at this time.

[norrisg]

This seems like something that could be fairly easily fixed, but it has been outstanding for seven years. This error does seem to have become more prevalent though, which suggests that maybe BC's executable version compare no longer correctly matches some headers.

[Aaron]

Without sample files, it would be difficult to know if you are encountering the same issue or a different issue that creates the same error message. You can email samples to [email protected] along with a link back to this forum thread for our reference.

The sample file gathered here was malformed but is something we plan to work with when implementing major changes to the Version Compare (likely BC5).