How to Fix a Corrupted Savefile?

[Atreyu]

Hi, how can I repair, or extract important files from, a corrupted savefile?

I'm a long-time Puppy user currently running Xenial. Yesterday, Firefox got into a bad state after a long day of use or perhaps a script had a problem, and started consuming 100% CPU usage. I right-clicked the icon in the task bar to close it and went to bed; this has happened once before and eventually Firefox closes and performance returns to normal. Unfortunately, this morning that did work and I had to reboot my laptop. Now the savefile will not load and trying to open it from a different instance of puppy gives a generic "Cannot open savefile" error. The savefile is encrypted with the "light" option.

Edit- When starting I get the message "Dumping last four lines of bootinit.log
mount -t ext4 -o noatime /dev/mapper/savefile /pup_rw
mount : mounting /dev/mapper/savefile on /pup_rw failed
Warning: setting PUPSAVE=""
Device savefile is not active.

Thanks,
Matt

[bigpup]

You can try this:

To test for and repair errors in Linux file system, use "e2fsck".

You need to boot some version of Puppy, so it is not using the broken save.

You do not say how Puppy was installed and on what device or what exact Puppy version.
I assume, when booting, you see some kind of boot menu.
Usually there is a boot option to boot not using the save.
May say RAM only or no save.

The save file can not be in use.

Mount the partition the save is on.

Open a terminal, and enter:

e2fsck /path to savefile

For example:
The save is named pupsave.2fs and is on sda1 partition.

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e2fsck /mnt/sda1/pupsave.2fs

Save is in directory xenialpup on partition sda1

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e2fsck /mnt/sda1/xenialpup/pupsave.2fs

To check a save folder use the method for checking a partition.
Check the partition the save folder is on.

To do the whole partition:
Need to boot from a live Puppy or a Puppy on a different partition to do a partition check.
(the partition must be unmounted)
Example:
partition sda1

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e2fsck /dev/sda1

[williams2]

You need to create a mapped device to the encrypted save file first.
something like this:

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# losetup -f /mnt/home/bionicpup64save_luks.4fs
#
# losetup
/dev/loop3: [2052]:311081 /mnt/home/bionicpup64save_luks.4fs
#
# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/loop3 luks123
Enter passphrase for /mnt/home/bionicpup64save_luks.4fs:

Now you can fsck /dev/mapper/luks123

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fsck.ext4 -f /dev/mapper/luks123
losetup -d /dev/loop3

.
Maybe LotsaLuk might be useful? or not.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117984
.

[enrique]

I hope NOT to confuse OP. And forget me if I am hijacking.
Encrypted!, I personally stay away of that. Only brings troubles.

Now I been prove to be wrong many times, and I was last time amazed about pack-it and unpack manage of save files.

But can we really do

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e2fsck /mnt/sda1/pupsave.2fs

That is a squashfs I do not think e2fsck can do sfs.

[bigpup]

The save file is a special type of file that has a complete Linux filesystem inside it.
.2fs --it is ext2 file system
.3fs --it is ext3
.4fs --it is ext4

e2fsck will work on them, to check the file system, inside the save file.

A normal sfs it will not check. There is nothing to check. No file system in a normal sfs.

A save folder it will not check. It is just directories and files.
For save folders, you check the file system of the partition, it is on.

[nic007]

The save file is a special type of sfs that has a complete Linux filesystem inside it.
.2fs --it is ext2 file system
.3fs --it is ext3
.4fs --it is ext4

e2fsck will work on them, to check the file system, inside the save file.

A normal sfs it will not check. There is nothing to check.

Really?

[bigpup]

Yes.

Try it with a save file.

Also right click on a save file.
Select properties.
It will give info.

Example:
A test save file I made as a .3fs.

[bigpup]

Well, I guess saying the save file is a special sfs is not exactly true.
It is more a special file.

What is a 3FS file?

File containing a file system snapshot saved in the third extended file system (EXT3) in Puppy Linux; stores the state of the file system at a certain point in time and can be used for resetting the file system back to that state; saved to an external file system partition

[nic007]

It's totally wrong. SFS is an archiving format, got nothing to do with a savefile.

[enrique]

nic007

I am so sorry for creating confusion. bigpup is 100%.
Puppy save files end like 2fs 3fs but that has NOTHING to do with squashfs. Puppy saves are just a file witch data has been formatted as Linux ext.

I feel like an idiot I know this, I do not know what I was thinking last night. I guess to much coffee.

[nic007]

nic007

I am so sorry for creating confusion. bigpup is 100%.
Puppy save files end like 2fs 3fs but that has NOTHING to do with squashfs. Puppy saves are just a file witch data has been formatted as Linux ext.

I feel like an idiot I know this, I do not know what I was thinking last night. I guess to much coffee.

I was correcting bigpup who thought a savefile was an sfs file at first.

[MochiMoppel]

I am so sorry for creating confusion. bigpup is 100%.
Puppy save files end like 2fs 3fs but that has NOTHING to do with squashfs. Puppy saves are just a file witch data has been formatted as Linux ext..

I'm utterly confused.

BK wrote in his How Puppy works:
"The initial ramdisk file remains fixed in size, and everything under "/" goes into pup_save.3fs, the squashfs file that gets attached later in the boot process." (emphasis by me)

NOTHING to do with squashfs?

[nic007]

NOTHING to do with squashfs?

YES.

[nic007]

everything under "/" goes into pup_save.3fs

I actually did a system search for this file just to make sure it's not something hidden somewhere.

[enrique]

...NOTHING to do with squashfs?

I am sorry for the confusion. It is all in your link

Puppy Save

pup_save.3fs
The ".3fs" means that the file contains a ext3 filesystem.

Puppy system files are a different story, they are squash

pup_xxx.sfs
The ".sfs" means the file contains a squashfs compressed filesystem.

[Moose On The Loose]

Sometimes this is the best way to go:

boot with "puppy pfix=ram" (no quotes)
You will be running with no save file.
Browse to and click on the save file.
It should open to show its contents.
Make a temporary directory on some disk and copy all the contents in there.
At this point, you should have all your valuable files saved away.

If you can't fix the save file with any of the methods:

Copy the files in the temporary directory into the file system of the running puppy so that the files are once again where expected. If a file is messed up you may end up with new trouble in the new save file you will make in the next step.

Shut down and make a new save file with an easy to remember name.
Start up and choose that new file.
Try out all your stuff

[tallboy]

That may be difficullt when you have a problem like mine; a savefile with a corrupted ROX, which don't let me run X. I now run from the bkup, but it was made some time, and many modifications, ago...

Yes, I know, I know!

Finding that single fault in ROX is difficult.