Zip file created by yazl not openable in Windows Explorer

[Matt4880]

I'm using Yazl 2.5.1 as the final step of a Node-based build process to package my application. We occasionally find that the files produced will not open in native Windows Explorer (usually Win10) with Windows complaining that 'the compressed (zipped) folder '***' is invalid'

I am, however, able to open the archive using 7zip (v16.02)

The snippet of code I'm using to zip is

    var yazl = require("yazl");
    var zipfile = new yazl.ZipFile();
    zipfile.addFile(outputFilePath, setupFilename);
    zipfile.outputStream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream(outputFilePath.replace(/\.exe$/,'.zip')));

where variables outputFilePath, setupFilename have been already defined.

fs is using fs-extra

[thejoshwolfe]

Corrupt zipfile bugs usually happen when you don't wait for the operation to finish before trying to read it. I don't know if that's what's happening here; I don't see anything wrong with the code you posted.

Is it possible to share a zipfile that demonstrates the incompatibility? I might be able to spot something wrong with it by examining the binary file.

I've tested unzipping yazl-created zipfiles with the Windows 7 compressed folder utility before, so it's supposed to work. (The Mac Archive Utility has known issues, by contrast.)

[Matt4880]

Any way I can send you a link? It's around 25Mb, so going via Google Drive prob works best

[thejoshwolfe]

thejoshwolfe@gmail.com

[thejoshwolfe]

It does appear that the file is prematurely truncated. There's no Central Directory, which is supposed to come at the end of the file. I'm not sure what 7-Zip is doing to recover from that kind of corruption, but the standard linux command line program unzip is also not able to read it.

The stream created by fs.createWriteStream(outputFilePath.replace(/\.exe$/,'.zip')) will emit a 'close' event when the file has been completed. It's necessary to wait for that event on Windows before trying to do anything with it (and on posix, you really only need to wait for the 'finish' event, but the 'close' event is ok there too.) This is not yazl-specific; this is just how streams work in Node.

[Matt4880]

OK thanks. Had suspected it may be something like that, but was led astray when 7-zip could open it.

[ricky11]

did you fix this matt

[buzzy]

@thejoshwolfe I have a similar problem. The produced zip file works fine on Mac OS and in Linux, but on Windows, the OS reports the zip to be "broken" then trying to open it. It is very strange, because it seems to happen when I add more than 170-ish files to the zip. If I zip one less file, it works. Add one more (in any subdir) it breaks. I really don't know how to proceed at this point.

zip -t file.zip shows "missing end signature". I guess the zipfile is closed too quickly? I am creating the zip dynamically and stream it to the client.

[thejoshwolfe]

@buzzy does my above paragraph starting with "The stream created by" help in your case?

[buzzy]

@buzzy does my above paragraph starting with "The stream created by" help in your case?

I ended up simply switching to the "archive" library where everything just worked.