(Possibly) Quite a serious bug in Midnight Commander

[fitbrit]

I'm hoping this is the correct forum to post this in:

I'm wondering whether anyone else can confirm this bug, which may cause data loss.

 

When overwriting multiple files in a folder in a move, MC appears to actually delete the files that are being moved, rather than those in the target destination. I have done this three times, and each time I thought it was my error.

The other day, I was replacing TV recordings of a certain series with a transcoded DVD rip of the episodes (at higher quality). The file names were identical, but their sizes were not. I very carefully made sure I knew which were destination and originating folders. I did the move and to my jaw-dropping surprise, MC deleted the ones in the originating folder as to be expected, but did not replace the ones in the target folder - despite my explicit instructions to replace all with the same name.

I found that I could copy the files over and they would correctly overwrite in the destination folder. Also, I could delete the older files first and move the newer ones to the destination just fine in two steps.

 

I'm running 4.5.3, and I assume that the MC is part of that package?

 

Any comments, confirmations, help etc. welcome.

[Joe L.]

I'm hoping this is the correct forum to post this in:

I'm wondering whether anyone else can confirm this bug, which may cause data loss.

 

When overwriting multiple files in a folder in a move, MC appears to actually delete the files that are being moved, rather than those in the target destination. I have done this three times, and each time I thought it was my error.

The other day, I was replacing TV recordings of a certain series with a transcoded DVD rip of the episodes (at higher quality). The file names were identical, but their sizes were not. I very carefully made sure I knew which were destination and originating folders. I did the move and to my jaw-dropping surprise, MC deleted the ones in the originating folder as to be expected, but did not replace the ones in the target folder - despite my explicit instructions to replace all with the same name.

I found that I could copy the files over and they would correctly overwrite in the destination folder. Also, I could delete the older files first and move the newer ones to the destination just fine in two steps.

 

I'm running 4.5.3, and I assume that the MC is part of that package?

 

Any comments, confirmations, help etc. welcome.

I've just added an install-package for the 2010-02-06 version of "mc" to unMENU's package manager.

 

You can download and install it from unMENU, or you can download from

http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-current/slackware/ap/mc-20100206_git-i486-1.txz

 

and install it by typing:

installpkg mc-20100206_git-i486-1.txz

 

You'll need to re-install every time you re-boot.  The unMENU package manager makes it easy as it has a button to request the updated "mc" package be installed every time you re-boot.

 

Joe L.

[fitbrit]

Thanks, Joe!

[fitbrit]

Hey Joe

 

The new version of MC you provided fixed the problem. Many, many thanks! I was also the impetus that I needed to upgrade to the newest unmenu. Great work.