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Author Topic: Opening zip files created on a Mac of 4GB or bigger on a Windows or Linux PC Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-01-2017 07:11 PM                        This appears to be a well-known bug with the zip creator built in to Mac OS: zip files bigger than 4294967296 bytes cannot be opened on anything other than another Mac OS computer. If you Google this, you'll find lots of stuff online about it, but this page summarizes the problem pretty well. We're being given more and more download links for trailer DCP zips that I can't open because of this, and I was wondering if anyone had stumbled across any fix or workaround (e.g. a third party zip program) that enables the contents of these big Mac zips to be extracted in either Windows or Linux (ideally in Ubuntu, but I'd be open to using another flavor of Linux live boot if that would do the job).  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 02-01-2017 07:31 PM                     Have you tried 7-Zip. I have had luck opening files that winzip will not. Not sure about large Mac ones.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-01-2017 07:42 PM                        No luck with 7-Zip.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 02-01-2017 07:50 PM                     Love 7-zip. Agree, better than WinZip.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 02-01-2017 08:52 PM                        If they are sending you defective archives then I suggest the proper solution would be to tell them to stop doing that. There are numerous, arguably better, options for creating compressed archives other than zip. I think modern versions of the Apple operating system are based on BSD Unix so tar and bzip2 should be readily available.  |  IP: Logged Magnus Eriksson Expert Film Handler Posts: 121 From: Stockholm, Hägersten, Sweden Registered: Jan 2011 posted 02-02-2017 02:07 AM                     I'm not sure it's the same issue but this is what I have experienced lately: About 5% of downloaded trailers won't extract properly. I'm normally using WinRAR on Win 7, 8, 10 btw. WinRAR throws an error (I can't remember exactly what right now, but it's something about something that is too big). My workaround then is to double click on the zip archive and open it (WinRAR does that automatically). When I get to the DCP folder I left click and pull the folder out on the desktop. Another form of extraction takes place then with no errors, the now unzipped DCP can be transferred with FTP or USB and ingested without issues. /M.E.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-02-2017 06:07 AM                     It's a known problem indeed, and all I can suggest for now is to buy a cheap second hand Mac or run OS X in a VM to get a grip onto those files. There may be other issues around ZIP files larger than 4GB as well, not strictly related to an OS X archive function. Fortunately, I think I have never seen a trailer of that size. Even the larger ones we download usually end around 3GB or so. I think ATMOS trailers now start to break that barrier. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-02-2017 10:41 AM                        It's usually when you get the flat and scope versions in the same zip that they bust the 4GB barrier. Frank - agreed, and I'm surprised that this is happening as often as it does (about once every 4-6 weeks for me, at a guess). My booths can't be the only ones on the planet that don't have a Mac in them, and so I'm surprised that the distributors of these big zipped trailers aren't experiencing more "I can't open this" complaints and investigating why. This latest one that's giving me a headache is for an Oscar-nominated movie (A Man Called Ove), so it's not exactly some obscure student documentary about eggplant farming in Backofbeyondistan, destined only to appear at one or two arthouse fests. Carsten - thanks; I like the idea of Mac OS in a VM. I do have a Mac OS CD, with which I experimented making a Hackintosh partition for one of my PCs a few years ago (it sorta worked, but kept freezing up on me). When I get a couple of hours, I'll experiment with that.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-03-2017 06:29 AM                     I think it's easy to get a hand on a Snow Leopard DVD and install it in a VM. Might be handy for other uses as well. A suitable second hand Mac Mini or Mac Book would come out around 200-300US$ I guess. I have never seen two trailers packed into one ZIP - makes no sense, especially with FLAT and SCOPE versions, since most cinemas usually show only one of these formats, and shouldn't be forced to download both. Yes, some may have different screen setups in multiple auditoriums and need both formats, but I guess the majority only needs either version. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Leslie Hartmier Expert Film Handler Posts: 100 From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Registered: Jul 2012 posted 02-03-2017 05:48 PM                     ZIP files using WinZIP, 7-Zip, xzip, etc have a current maximum size of 16 exabytes, or if you are more comfortable with a better known file size, 16,000,000,000GB/ 16x10^9 GB, and has since June, 2015. My point in stating this is that if you are having a failure with extraction with the standard ZIP dearchiver in MacOS (which is fair, since the original standard maximum is 4GB (original open source specification: <removed the link, as pkware removed it> )), you can use http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html to bypass the 4GB limitation. Just drag it into your Applications, and you can do what you need to. All that said, the issue is unlikely to be file size, but rather the integrity of the archive. Hope that helps. Leslie  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-03-2017 08:09 PM                     Leslie - it's the other way round. There are many applications available on the Mac that are able to uncompress >4GB archives. The trouble is, only OS X' own archive utility is able to extract ZIP files >4GB CREATED on a Mac. If you receive such a ZIP on a windows or linux machine, as Leo, you're out of luck. I was actually hoping that Stuffit Expander could help, as it is/used to be quite common on the Mac, and should be able to deal with 'OS X native' file formats. However, it seems that not even their Mac version is able to uncompress large ZIP files created with the OS X archive tool. So I have no reason to assume the windows version of Stuffit Expander is doing a better job. It's weird, but is does seem that currently there is no other solution than to uncompress these files within OS X, bet it on a Mac or within a VM. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-04-2017 10:17 AM                     Why would anybody want to compress a DCP? A DCP contains mostly JPEG2000 files. JPEGs don't compress very much because they are already compressed. Even when they are aggregated in an MXF, they still can't be compressed. The only reason to ZIP something like that would be for the convenience of being able to download just one complete file instead of several. But, if that's the reason for using ZIP, there are better ways to do it such as packaging as a DMG or an ISO image file. Yes, I've known about the 4 GB thing but I rarely use ZIP for anything over a few hundred MB. For larger files, I use ISO/DMG.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 02-04-2017 12:02 PM                        quote: Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. That's a relatively famouns quote from a mailing list post by Henry Spencer many years ago. Tar was created for just exactly the purpose that you're discussing here. And it's available on almost all platforms, as far as I know.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-04-2017 02:46 PM                     All good and well, but not an option when you simply receive such a ZIP and have no way to get back to the originator to tell them to do it 'properly'. Randy - all trailers distributed over broadband nowadays are ZIPed. But they usually will not grow bigger than 2-3 Gbytes. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-05-2017 03:18 PM                     Just because everybody is doing it, that still doesn't make it right. I don't know of any up-to-date computer system, available today, that doesn't have a built-in way to make image files, either ISO, DMG or similar. That is the correct way to package a large DCP for download. This is a classic case of people doing something the wrong way then complaining when it doesn't work.  |  IP: Logged

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