General Question XR ships error message "zip files invalid"

[Priscilla_Anne]

Hello all;
I've been a user and fan of orbiter since .... sometime in the 90s and love it.
Was going to install the XR ships from http://www.alteaaerospace.com/index.html
I downloaded zip files for three ships - Ravenstar, Vanguard, and Delta Glider.
When I tried to unzip them, I got error messages saying essentially: "... zip file invalid". I tried this on two different computers with the same results.

I'm using Windows 7 and its built in zip file "extract" feature. Changing the location to which the files are being extracted has no effect on this problem.
I've done lots of unzipping in the past, for a variety of non-orbiter and orbiter things with no problem. Don't know what I am doing wrong!

Priscilla

 

[DaveS]

You need 7zip to extract the files. The built-in Windows zip utility can't handle the compression format of the archives.

 

[Keatah]

I wonder why they'd use the .zip file extension when 7-zip compression is supposedly used?

This to me looks like a standard zip file, but having been improperly transferred.
http://www.alteaaerospace.com/index-3.html

 

[Lucy]

Can confirm, the XR vessels are packaged in plain old ZIP format.

$ file XR2Ravenstar-1.8.zip
XR2Ravenstar-1.8.zip: Zip multi-volume archive data, at least PKZIP v2.50 to extract

$ head XR2Ravenstar-1.8.zip
PPK
ݩ ./Config/PK
(ZIP file PK header)

The file I just pulled can be validated using a quick md5 validation;
$ md5sum XR2Ravenstar-1.8.zip
35bb08b83e504fa26e7435565bd9e733 XR2Ravenstar-1.8.zip

If you checksum the file (On Windows, you can use this microsoft utility to compute the checksum values), the output should match the above for MD5. If it doesn't, you'll need to redownload the file.

Similarly, the XR1 and XR5 files can be validated by comparing the output to these values (pulled, again, today):

f2f42cb4a1c3ec457d80f3b0ff4d4d5f XR5Vanguard-1.11.zip
9ae563e7a1deca97c3102145c4c4b11b DeltaGliderXR1-1.13.zip

Once downloaded and valid, full files, the Windows built-in .zip handler should be perfectly capable to extract them (though 7zip is a far more capable utility).

 

[DaveS]

I wonder why they'd use the .zip file extension when 7-zip compression is supposedly used?

This to me looks like a standard zip file, but having been improperly transferred.
http://www.alteaaerospace.com/index-3.html

What matters is the compression method used. Different compression methods yields different file sizes. It is up to various archive utilities to implement these methods. File extensions doesn't really matter as long as the archive utility doesn't understand the compression method.

 

[Priscilla_Anne]

Thank you DaveS! That worked! Got the Ravenstar running. Now it is time to read the manual to learn about the XR ships.

:thumbup:

Priscilla

 

[dbeachy1]

I use WinRar version 5.01 to create standard zip files like this (the working directory is the top of the XR2 distribution files folder):

WinRAR a -afzip -ep1 -m5 -r  ..\XR2Ravenstar-%version%.zip .

However, it appears that the built-in Windows 10 zip file handler has a bug where it can't read paths in the zip that start with "./", which is why you need to use something else like 7-Zip, WinZip, SecureZip, or WinRar to extract the files.

 

[Urwumpe]

I use WinRar version 5.01 to create standard zip files like this (the working directory is the top of the XR2 distribution files folder):

WinRAR a -afzip -ep1 -m5 -r  ..\XR2Ravenstar-%version%.zip .

However, it appears that the built-in Windows 10 zip file handler has a bug where it can't read paths in the zip that start with "./", which is why you need to use something else like 7-Zip, WinZip, or SecureZip to extract the files.

Generally, there is very little that 7-Zip can't handle. It even works for antique cpio archive files, as we have found out at work...