Error 44 : Unrecognized header : file cannot be decoded

[tomcat...@gmail.com]

My dev environment is windows 7 and production environment is RHEL 6. I compressed some files using the windows lz4 binary from http://fastcompression.blogspot.com/p/lz4.html

I had to install lz4 on the RHEL 6 production box. I downloaded the source, ran 'make' and 'make install'. I can run lz4 but if I try:

lz4 compressedfile.sql.lz4

I get 'Error 44 : Unrecognized header : file cannot be decoded"

Any reason this would be happening?

TIA

[Yann Collet]

Hi

It's strange. I made same tests again, just in case, and as expected, it works correctly.

Which version of LZ4 for Windows are you using ?

You should use version 1.4 or later, which supports the official streaming format.

Earlier versions were using an undocumented format, which has been phased out since. 

(note : LZ4 for Windows can still decode files produced with earlier versions, so this issue might be transparent to you).

But the open-source version of LZ4 can only use documented format. Hence it's incompatible with this "old" windows-only format.

Regards

Yann

[tomcat...@gmail.com]

Hi Yann,

That was it, I was using an older version on Windows and had just installed the new version on RHEL6. I just tested it and it works cross-compatibly.

I was pulling lz4 files from an older *nix box that probably has an older version of lz4, or it's the transparency issue. Unfortunately, it led me to believe the versions were compatible, and uploaded some *giant* database lz4 files the other way and...oh well.

Eh, that's what I get for not testing a small file first. Perhaps in a next release the error message could hint at the backward compatibility issue.

Thanks for your help,
Alec