UUEncoded files?? How to convert?

[martinlest]

Hi. I am not sure if this is the right place to post about this particular question, but I can't seem to find a suitable forum by Googling. Maybe somebody here will know of one, or be able to answer anyway.

I use Forte Agent as a newsgroup reader and it sometimes downloads films or pictures as what looks like a UUEncoded file:

M02^62A(Q#8+>`+BY$!7!N&%$(##BU#P1/M!.1U32V0&8>F1DQ8V````!!S(\
M9"02R_S,GN8;[A?\E%?`>ZN*NJ&(VT8_IY'N0C`*,'^\Q&<V]5/69;[R(=B?
M?RA#[G).*!)_/L43Y9KG!["YR%P'(!3PW\]L!E>%DHEY@1_TF)TBM:%Q62M*

.. and thousands of lines so forth. Does anyone know how to convert these to a playable video, or viewable photo? I can't even see how to save the text from Forte Agent so that I end up with a file I can work with, apart from copy and paste (to a text file in Notepad??, and then, if so, save as .. ???).

I did download a UUEncoder/Decoder, but it didn't recognise the file I saved. I have no idea how to go about this, so any help very welcome,

Thanks.

[Calidore]

You want to go to Folder | Default Properties | Receiving Messages, and look at the options under File Handling, Saving Attachments, and Attachment Folders. That's for version 6.0; you don't say which you're using, but I think those options have been pretty much the same going way back.

[martinlest]

Thanks for the reply. I have looked at the options you suggest - there's a screenshot to show my current settings. Short of trial & error, I am not sure how to proceed further though. Do you know how to get Agent to treat UUEncoded files so that I can launch and save them like a normal video or photo file?

Martin

[jman98]

Forte Agent is apparently a product you have to pay for. Can you not contact the people who sell it for help?

I use NewsBin for this kind of thing. It's also a commercial product.

Have you considered the possibility that the files you are having problems with are either incomplete (the person who uploaded it didn't upload all parts of it) or are corrupted and cannot be recovered? Corruption happens and if the uploader didn't provide any PAR files, there is nothing you can do.

[martinlest]

I don't think that Agent has any dedicated forum. I have sent a support request: will post back with any useful answers.

Meanwhile, WinZip will apparently decode UU files, but I just have the text, as per my original post, in Agent. If I choose "Save message' and choose 'All files', then, say 1.uu, the file opens WinZip but only with an error - 'No Begin', so I guess the files are corrupt anyway

Thanks again

[martinlest]

"No Begin found" is easily fixed in the end (so to speak) - I just added a line with the word 'begin' at the start of the file.

Now I don't get that error in WinZip, but another which says 'Note: No encoded data found in C:\Users\ ....."

[jman98]

I admire your willingness to attempt to fix this by adding "Begin" as I think it was worth trying but unlikely to work (and it didn't) but now you're starting to reach the point of insanity. What part of "Your files are either incomplete or corrupted" are you not understanding?

[martinlest]

What part of "Your files are either incomplete or corrupted" are you not understanding?

Was that meant to be as rude and patronising as it sounds? Let's assume not... but as an English teacher, be assured that I do understand the whole phrase. I don't feel anywhere near to insanity either, but thanks, I am sure, for the comment.

It's more a question of not automatically taking all comments posted in threads like this as gospel truth: maybe you are right, the files are likely corrupt, it was one of the first things that occurred to me, but I don't think, as you haven't seen the complete files, you are in a position to be 100% certain about this: there are ways to repair corrupted files and I am trying these options before I just delete them. The files are probably not incomplete, they correspond exactly with the length as posted, though maybe just one or two characters are missing, in which case I will probably never be able to fix them.

Nothing to 'admire' about adding 'a 'begin' line in a UU encoded file: all UU files must have that line at the start (and an 'end' line at the finish) and this one didn't. Putting the line in fixed that problem, but now that WinZip can read the file OK, I get a different error message about the data contained in the file, as above, one that is probably going to be impossible to get around, I agree.

M

[aedipuss]

get the mid <message-id> from the header of the post. copy paste it here and we can take a look at it. hard to believe anyone is still using uuencoding, as y-encoding took over 10 years ago.

here's a sample of the headers with the mid - you might have to turn on view/show all header fields.

Path: news.astraweb.com!border6.newsrouter.astraweb.com! border4.nntp.dca.giganews.com!Xby.tags.giganews.co m!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com! goblin3!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!news.astraweb.c om!border6.a.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail
From: NzbIndexer@alt.binaries.e-book.technical
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.e-book.technical
Subject: "Usenet Index Post 1366287394_2 yEnc (01/01)"
X-Newsposter: YPOST usenet poster version 0.2
Date: 18 Apr 2013 12:07:34 GMT
Lines: 74
Message-ID: <516fe206$0$46921$c3e8da3$fb483528@news.astraweb.c om>
Organization: Unlimited download news at news.astraweb.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: 9283614e.news.astraweb.com
X-Trace: DXC=^D`AP5E6AAX;0`5D\QI41SL?0kYOcDh@ZONOToUcNUVS1P @kIjgCe1_=3bK=jANH;P\aj1RC6BVe[BAcFSD9<\I\8B;TRF<c_8QSbGONlm9c6\
Bytes: 9753

[martinlest]

Thanks for the input, but before I saw the last rely I had deleted the files from Agent. Next time I get a similar problem with a file I'll post the header info here.

Thanks again

[jman98]

What aedipuss is saying - it MIGHT be possible to fix your problem if he can see your header. MIGHT.

What you keep hearing - Your problem is 100% fixable and if you just continue to beat your head against a wall enough and spend enough days on it, it will be fixed.

Really, do you need this porn that bad? You can't just find another photo to look at?

There are SOMETIMES ways to repair corrupted files. Your problem is that you believe that this is 100% true and it's not. If you don't have PAR files, sometimes uuencoded files CANNOT be fixed.

[martinlest]

What odd assumptions you make and how rudely you write! I never said or thought that file errors are 100% fixable. FYO I make game programmes (addons for MS Flight Simulator), so am pretty well-versed in more than the basics of all this - but not so much video encoding, I admit, and certainly not UU encoding: whatever, I am not the idiot you seem to want to make me out to be.

Hey, no matter... forums are full of people trying to look clever by telling others that they're stupid. Par for the course, we all know that. Not usually too many on these forums though.