Samba: names displayed as uppercase 8.3 random characters

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peter_b
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Samba: names displayed as uppercase 8.3 random characters

Post by peter_b »

[PROBLEM]
I was accessing files over a Samba share (Debian 8 (Jessie) as server), when some filenames were not the way they were when watching them on the server (using "ls"), but random uppercase letters in legacy "MS-DOS 8.3 notation".

For example:
"01 - author : title.txt" becomes "0HPENP~T.TXT"

Very confusing.

[SOLUTION]
The reason was that the filenames contained characters that unixoid filesystems (ext, zfs, etc) can handle, but Windows can't.
Therefore, Samba "cleaned" these filenames - but not in a very sensible way :(

That's a reason why I am very very picky about clean filenames! :evil:

Here's something that you can use to clean your filenames before trouble happens:
http://detox.sourceforge.net/


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peter_b
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Ending with a dot.

Post by peter_b »

It also seems to affect folders that "end with a dot" in the name.

For example, the folder "x.x" works fine, but "x.x." is translated to "XGI9XM~D"
Didn't expect this to be problem at all.
gilthanaz
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Re: Samba: names displayed as uppercase 8.3 random character

Post by gilthanaz »

WTF I've never seen this happen in a decade of using samba O.o
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