Corrupt pdf files with zero KB

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Ian - 20 Oct 2006 10:07 GMT

I have a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth running OS X Tiger and have noticed that
from time to time
I seem to be getting corrupt pdf files.

There is a pdf file in my Downloads folder with the name "1|9muaf0.pdf"
with a file size of zero KB.
Tiger (or something else) seems to be renaming pdf files with random
characters and leaving an
empty file with zero KB.

This is about the third time something like this has happened over the
past few months, and it is
always a pdf file, (whether the original file was a pdf file or not I
could not say, but I imagine so).
As the pdf filenames are just random characters it's hard to say what
they originally were.

I am using Acrobat Reader 7.0.0, could this be corrupting pdf files
when I have opened them,
or is my hard drive going to die soon.

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Greg Pratt - 21 Oct 2006 06:01 GMT

>I have a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth running OS X Tiger and have noticed that
>from time to time
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>when I have opened them,
>or is my hard drive going to die soon.

If your hard drive dies, it has nothing to do with this problem.

The problem you are describing sounds like it is specific to PDF files
you've attempted to download from the Internet, such as via a web
browser. A truncated file could be caused by any of a number of error
conditions. The most common would be that your web browser requests the
document, begins to save it, but never receives any data from the remote
server. At some point, the connection times out, leaving you with an
empty file. It might also be caused (in some browsers) by you
terminating the download before the remote server responds. Finally,
if there is a plug-in involved that allows you to view the PDF inside
a browser window, it might be crashing and leaving a temporary file
behind.

You might check the timestamps on these files, and try to figure out
where they might have been downloaded from based on that information.

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Ian - 21 Oct 2006 08:57 GMT

>> I have a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth running OS X Tiger and have noticed that
>> from time to time
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> You might check the timestamps on these files, and try to figure out
> where they might have been downloaded from based on that information.

Hi Greg
Thanks for your reply.
The timestamp for this particular file is Oct 4, which is 17 days ago, and as
I set my history preferences to 7 days, I cannot remember where I downloaded
this particular file.

I use Firefox as my browser and I always watch the progress bar in the download
window when downloading anything and would have seen if something
didn't download.

You are right when you mention about requesting a download and then the
server times
out, leaving an empty file, this has happened to me once or twice, but
even then, when
the pdf file was zero KB, it still had the correct filename, (I have
Firefox set to ask me where
to save each download, so the name of the file always shows up in the
file saving window,
and sometimes I may rename the file slightly before clicking the save button).

I also open most pdf files straight after I've downloaded them which
rules out the possibility
of them being corrupt when downloading.
I have set Finder's preferences to open straight to my Downloads
folder, and I have set it to
view the files as a List, so when there is a file that is zero KB, it
is noticeable straight away,
so I still think that these pdf files are somehow being corrupt a few
weeks after download.

I think I'll move all my pdf files to their own PDF folder and maybe
keep a list of what's there,
then if one does become corrupt, it should be easier to track down
which one it was.

Ian

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / October 2006

Corrupt pdf files with zero KB