Problem with TFLM

[heidiboon]

I am using The Form Letter Machine.  I have 5 forms (.dat files) that I use on a regular basis.  When I first loaded TFLM I had no problems using the files.  I received an update from my employer and now three of the files do not have a "tree"/path and does not fill in any information.  My employer has the same programs and versions and his works fine.  I have just today uninstalled and reinstalled TFLM and also had my employer send me the .dat files again.  Still they do not work.  I would appreciate any insight into this problem.  Thank you.

[mouser]

Hi Heidi,

We have talked over email but didn't quite figure out what was up -- let me contact you again and see if i can understand what the nature of your problem is.

-mouser

[mouser]

i looked over heidi's files and determined that what happened was that the .dat data files were almost certainly messed up by a tool that treated them as text files and converted CRLF pairs to LF characters.  i suspect this was done by a zip program.  more investigation will reveal and i will report.

[heidiboon]

Just wondering if anything has come of this?  I sent my .dat files for review, but haven't heard anything.

[mouser]

heidi i sent you a long email explaining the problem -- can you check if you got it -- i will email again if not.

[heidiboon]

I did not receive any email.  Thank you.

[mouser]

I've resent the emails -- if you don't see them in your email inbox please look around to see if they were filed as spam.


Now let me post what I found in case others stumble upon the same problem:

"Is it possible that the files are somehow being changed between your employer's computer and yours?  How did they send them to you? did they make a zip file of them first and then you unzipped them?"


I have found that the files are slightly "corrupted"

But corrupted in a way that makes me think maybe the files were zipped and then unzipped and the zip program made a mistake where it thought the files were TEXT files that had their end of line characters modified.

That may not make much sense to you but the point is, i believe it explains the problem completely.. and tells us what the solution is -- you need to have your employer resend you the files, but not use a zip program.  OR ALTERNATIVELY you can actually tell your zip program to assume the files are binary, and then it will work.

If the files were not sent to you in zip file format, maybe an email program did this corruption.. i can actually manually repair the files for you if need be, but its more work.

-jesse