SABnzbd Forums

Version: 0.5.0 Final
OS:  Windows 7 English
Install-type: Windows Installer
Skin not appl.
Firewall Software: AVG Internet Security
Are you using IPV6? no
Is the issue reproducible? yes

I get an error report. See attached logfile. Something to do with ESC character in position 27.
There is some setting not OK in Windows.

You have the character š in your user name, which cannot be represented in the ISO/IEC 8859 character set.
Unfortunately, SABnzbd isn't a full Unicode app yet.

A work-around is to start SABnzbd in this way (from a command prompt to modify the shortcut).
"c:\program files\SABnzbd\SABnzbd.exe" -f c:\usenet

Replace "c:\usenet" with an appropriate path for your system.

I will try to find out why SABnzbd's built-in work-around doesn't work in this case.

BTW: The installer did not crash, it's SABnzbd itself that crashes.

Thank you for your reply.

What do you mean with the username? Which do you mean, for SABNZBD or Window inlogging? I am not aware of using this character in any username. There is happening something else on my system!. I have trouble reading special characters too in the Webbrowser. Till now I could not figure out where to correct that behaviour. It seems this behaviour is related to this fault.

If starting SABNZBD like you indicated, what files are to be expected in the C:\Usenet directory you mention? Is that the user directory that is scrambled with odd characters? See attached Screen View of my settings. Which one to use for this workaround?

Somehow Windows reports back crazy characters when SABnzbd
asks for the profile folders of the user account.
The scrambled user path is indeed derived from what Windows returns
as location for "My Documents".
Your Windows user account is damaged.

SABnzbd asks for the user profile so that it can store its admin folders.
The -f option allows you to set an alternative location.
The Config->Folders menu tells you what each folder is used for.

I think my profile is not damaged. I changed the default directory for MyDocuments to another partition than the system partition.

I assume this has not been foreseen in your programming.

I just don't see the connection with the new version 0.5.0 not running and 0.4.12 does run. The combining of the new location of MyDocuments and the User Folder for admin files is completely wrong. I suspect this is the SABnzbd program's fault. Especially I see the changed location on the data partition and after that the scrambling starts and the latter comes from SABnzbd. This fact could be my problem on 0.5.0 too, character ~s in user name!

Please have a look into this and you will be awarded a small amount if you can fix it.

I'll check it.
The simple work-around is to set full paths for the
folders that are in the "documents" path.

Hello shypike,

I got 0.5.0 running now. I used the -f option to define my user data location. I just copied the SABnzbd.ini file to that user directory to copy the settings of 0.4.12.

The start command is now
It however had an unexpected effect on the location of the system folder. This changed to the same directory as defined for the SABnzbd.ini file in the start -f option. Beforehand this was still at C:\Users\Leo\Appdata\local....(see previous Post of me for that)

I think this effect needs your attention in this case as well.

There's nothing unexpected.
Documented and intended behavior.
See: http://wiki.sabnzbd.org/command-line-parameters

Default behavior is conform the Windows software guidelines.
The -f will trigger different behavior for advanced users.

I still suspect that there's something odd in your "my documents" path.
However, I did discover an incorrect exception handlier in the involved code.
If there is an unconvertible character, SABnzbd should fall back to
the ancient 8.3 system (like "c:\program files" becomes "c:\progra~1").
It doesn't do that currently due to the error.

Can you look up in the registry what the value of this registry key is?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal

I don't know if it's safe to change this reg key, because it's a simulated one in Vista and Win7.

all seems to be correct. See attached file.

You can change this key from Explorer. Just right click and change the location of the folder. The same for My Pictures, My Music and My Video. I won't dare to change this in the registry with the interface in Explorer available.

Even with the uncorrected code I cannot reproduce your garbled problem
unless I actually simulate garbage coming from the registry.
So for now there's nothing I can do except fix the errors I discovered,
which will prevent the crash that you originally reported.

BTW: how did you start SABnzbd to get the picture in your second message?
The one showing the garbled "Mijn Documenten" path?

I just did not use the -f option. It supposes to use the standard User's My Documents folder.

Though I defined absolute directories on my data partition. Version 0.4.12 did not had the error coming from the scrambled characters. So this have been caused by changes going from the old to the new version.