Protracker compatibility issues

[womagrid]

I have some MOD files that open on an A600 with Furia (68020) card. They also work on various non-Amiga players.

On an A1200 with 68030, all versions of Protracker I've tried (2.3d, 2.3f, 3.15) complain "Can't open file!". These are the same versions of Protracker that are working on the A600.

The files are not corrupted and it doesn't matter which copy of the files I use or which device they are stored on.

Does anyone have any ideas about what might be causing this?

 

[miggymad]

Attach to your post or add a link to some of the problematic ones you have and let's see if anyone can help

 

[womagrid]

Here is an example of one that is not working: https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=188605

 

[miggymad]

File wouldn't play in Protracker V4.0 (OS3.2.2 WinUAE) until it was renamed from richard_jonas_-_breaka_beats.mod to breaka_beats.mod

Proper playback was observed when using Winamp on my PC, no matter the filename.

So presume your problem lies in the filename on the Amiga side. Try renaming the problematic ones and try again.

 

[womagrid]

Thanks for your help. You pointed me in the right direction.

Whenever I copy the files on the A1200, their names are silently truncated, and then the absence of a .MOD extension confuses Protracker.

This may be somehow related to Kickstart version, since I'm using the same filesystem on both systems.

 

[miggymad]

No worries, glad to be of help

N.B. Your problem might also be caused by having your filename length (PREFS/Workbench) set too short (default is 25). Might be worth a quick double-check as the file you link to above is 32 characters in total ...

 

[womagrid]

I didn't know that setting existed because I've never had to change it on any other system. Increasing it hasn't helped.

Updating the FNSIZE with setpfs fixed the issue of the names being truncated in the first place, but Protracker still refuses to open them, so there must be something else going on. You can see that they are no longer truncated below:

 

[miggymad]

To get the file from your link to play in Protracker (via WinUAE) I had to rename and remove the "richard_jones_-_" part of the filename.

Try that and see what happens...

 

[womagrid]

I understood you, and that does work, but the question is now why is this only happening on the A1200? I need to reiterate that the A600 "just works" with the same OS version and even the same hard disk image. No file renaming is required.

With the PFS partition shown in the screenshot, I could actually see the filenames being silently truncated on write (after updating the window). Changing the PFS settings has stopped that, but it seems that file access (e.g. in Protracker) still behaves as if the file name was truncated.

Further evidence that PFS settings are not to blame comes from the fact that I have another copy of the same files on a FAT CF card, which never exhibited the filename truncation, and these files also cannot be accessed from within Protracker.

In summary, for some reason, the OS on the A1200 is applying file name truncation at the point of access.

 

[miggymad]

It could well be something in the A1200's version of the OS itself as you surmise ... Your best bet would be to go ask the creators/writers over on EAB Amiga. It does seem strange that this is only happening on your A1200 ... Thomas Richter or Thomas are the people most knowledgeable about such things related to file-handling.

Perhaps you have discovered a previously unknown bug

 

[womagrid]

Edited in case this helps anyone else...

Any file system that preserves long filenames (FAT formatted CF card, PFS, OS 3.2 FFS with long filenames enabled) will cause this issue. Regular FFS truncates the long filenames on write, and that is what makes the files readable in Protracker.