[Box Backup] Non-ASCII file and folder names crash Boxi at restore but not at backup

[Achim]

Hello list:

On Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:20:19 +0200, Achim <achim+box@qustodium.net> wrote:
> After successfully compiling Boxi R642 and Boxbackup R2495 as outlined in
> my earlier messages, I am now running some tests on the resulting
binaries,
> mainly in the area of non-ASCII file names and folder names.

As outlined earlier, there are some issues with using Boxi in an non-ASCII
environment. 

For instance, consider that "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu" is translated by
default into "%USERPROFILE%\Menú Inicio" (in Spanish) and
"%USERPROFILE%\Startmenü" (in Germany). "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\"
translates to "%USERPROFILE%\Configuración local". 

I think we can agree that at least the "local settings" is a pretty
important location to back up, but Boxi at the moment fails to back up
these user settings on Spanish and German (and probably many other
non-English) installations of Windows because of problems when accessing
files on non-ASCII paths. I think that this could either be a Boxi issue or
a wxWidgets issue, although wxWidgets was compiled with Unicode support.

Take the following example: We are trying to back up the following actual
path ("Local Settings" for my user on a stock Spanish Windows XP pro
installation): C:\Documents and Settings\achim\Configuración local\

Now if I add this path in Boxi and save the resulting file bbackupd.conf,
the visualisation on the "Backup" tab changes immediately from
"C:\Documents and Settings\achimlatz\Configuración local" to "C:\Documents
and Settings\achimlatz\Configuración local"

In addition, opening the resulting bbackupd.conf with the following
programs (*hoping that mail encoding will transfer this correctly*) shows:

- Notepad: 
C:\Documents and Settings\achim\Configuración local

- Wordpad: 
C:\Documents and Settings\achim\Configuración local
(this is also how it shows in Boxi's panel "Backup")

- cmd.exe with more:
C:\Documents and Settings\achim\Configuraci├│n local\Datos de
programa\Google

If I now close Boxi and open the configuration file as saved by Boxi
before, Boxi cannot find the location "C:\Documents and
Settings\achim\Configuración local" anymore, i.e. when going to the
"Backup" panel, "Configuración local" is not marked, but "C:\Documents and
Settings\achim\" is. Boxi perhaps saved the original location in one
encoding and then opens the same file with another encoding, leading to the
mixup?

In order to fix this, I need to open bbackupd.conf and change
"Configuración loca" into "Configuración local" and save the file. If I
now open that manually updated file with Boxi, it finds the location
"Configuración local" again! However, it appears that even though Boxi can
now visualise the path it is supposed to back up, it does not do any actual
backing up.

At the same time, bbackupd.exe works fine with the conf file as saved with
Boxi ("Configuración local"), but fails with this error when using the
manually edited one ("Configuración local") that shows correctly in Boxi:

WARNING: Failed to stat location path 'C:\Documents and
Settings\achim\Configuracin local', skipping location 'Configuración
local': No such file or directory (2)

Any help on how to debug this and nail down the problem would be
appreciated, as this is critical for non-English Windows installations. I
think it might be a matter of consistently using the same encoding throught
Box Backup and Boxi, but my knowledge in that area is really limited.

Thank you in advance, Achim