SFTP-downloading Guardian ASCII text file truncation issue

[Leon Arens]

When I used Beyond compare 3 to download a GUARDIAN ASCII file from a HP-nonstop via “sftp” in the OSS personality, it normally works fine, but it always truncates the file to the EOF size of the source file. Guardian-Ascii files (EDIT files) on the HP-nonstop are have an internal format, so when the file is download from the HP-nonstop it is converted to ascii by the SFTP server on the HP-nonstop and sends it in ascii format to my pc. Once the file has been transmitted to my PC, the File is closed. The EOF of the file is = to the number of characters in the file on my PC. I have noticed that when the EOF of the file on the HP-nonstop is less than the number of characters it takes to store the file on my PC, Beyond compare sets the EOF of the file on my PC to be equal to that on the HP-nonstop, thus truncating text files.


Is Beyond compare checking the EOF before it downloads a file and then only downloads for the EOF size or is Beyond Compare downloading the file and then setting the EOF to the EOF from the source file? Is there a configuration I am not setting correctly that could resolve this problem?

[Aaron]

Hello,

Beyond Compare 3's FTP Profiles, by default, perform an ASCII transfer for any text information. Go to the Tools menu -> FTP Profile, and select the default profile. In the Transfer tab switch from Auto -> Binary, then restart BC3. Once relaunched, does this help with your current transfer?

[Leon Arens]

Aaron,
It did not resolve the issue.

[Aaron]

We do not have official Non-Stop FTP support, but you could also try the trial of BC4. Some of the underlying libraries have been updated, and it would be a good test against the server (which we do not currently have a test environment for). You can install the BC4 trial alongside a registered install of BC3. They can both be on the same system at the same time; the only conflict is the right-click Shell extension in Explorer, which you'll need to use the Options dialog to disable one/enable the other to pick which version you want.

[Sai Korada]

Aaron, I am having the similar issue with Nonstop Tandem Guardian ASCII File. We have BC 4 on our shop and I am SFTO(SSH2) protocol to connect HP Nonstop Tandem and when trying to fetch the file from Tandem and could see partial file. Any idea what's going wrong here?

[Sai Korada]

Leon,

are you still facing this issue?

[Aaron]

Hello,

This is not something we've been able to address yet. If you double check with an alternate SFTP client (such as WinSCP with Allow SCP Fallback *Disabled* in the Profile's Advanced settings, Environment -> SFTP tab), what behavior do you see?

[jimsmullen]

I work with Sai. We have a number of sftp clients (e.g. Notepad++ w/nppFTP in sftp mode) on the systems none of them have this problem (short reads of EDIT files). We conjecture that BC reads for the number of bytes in finds in the file's EOF (via ls -l). However the ascii on the NonStop (Guardian EDIT file) is not pure text and can contain compressed lines, so the file's EOF is less that if the file was converted to a NL separated file (UNIX like). We believe that the tools that work correctly, just read until EOF is posted. The SFTP server on the NonStop converts the edit file to a UNIX text file on the fly) Since nothing on a windows box can read the contents of an EDIT file, a transfer in binary mode is not an option.

[Aaron]

Thanks for all of that technical detail. I'll add these as notes to our tracker entry on the subject, which our developers can review when they investigate. Unfortunately, it's not a quick fix and dependent on some helper libraries that we use; we have to be careful not to introduce any new issues or behavior when doing that overhaul.

[Chris]

The Nonstop SFTP truncated file issue is fixed in Beyond Compare 4.4, released today.