Is there any need for up-to-date software for AOS 3.x?

[ChaosLord]

What I'd need lately is ... a version of Lha which correctly handles archives with thousands of files (both OS4 and 68k versions have problems, at least under OS4, while LZX seems to work fine),

Varthall

Say what?  I have tested lha vs lzx vs zip a zillion times.
I was forced to do those tests because my game archive on Aminet has 24 gazillion files in it and lzx kept damaging files.

lha works perfectly on giant archives.

If you are having an lha problem then you are probably not using lha but some GUI thingamajig that damages the archive.

What version of lha doesn't work on OS4?
Did u use it from CLI or some GUI thing?

(The OS4 GUI for lha extraction is already known to be broken.  It is an OS4 problem not really an lha problem.)

The GUI lha things in AmikitOS, ClassicWB etc. are all broken also.
Possibly because they all use xadmaster.library or somesuch.

All versions of lzx are bugged.  There is no way around it.  If you use lzx and it "works" you just got lucky.  Eventually your luck will run out.  Friendly warning.

[ChaosLord]

Try to create an arichive from a partition full of 2.7Gb...

I have done that lots of times.

If you don't want it to take forever then you must do the following things:
1. Assign T: to somehwere on the hard drive.  I must do this step because I only have 32 MB ram on my A1200 060.  Assigning it to the HD reduces memory fragementation also.

2. If you are using OS3.x then make sure you are running TLSFmem.  It makes lha go 20x or more faster on giant archives.

I believe they remain stuck while scanning the directory tree. I remember it remained in such a state for 10 minutes before I reset the machine, and I was trying to archive the whole updated SDK archive.

It wasn't stuck.  It just takes a long time to build up the file list into T:.

I agree that it takes to long.
I also agree that the scanning procedure does wayyyyyyy to many mallocs and frees so is very slow.
But in the end it works.

[ChaosLord]

I have tried it lately using the public registered version of LZX and it seemed to work well, at least for smaller archives. What problems have you encountered?

Varthall

1. There is no such thing as "the" public registered lzx that works.

1a. "The" original lzx was totally broken, not y2k compliant.  Nobody uses it because the author flatly refuses to fix it.

1b. "The" orignal lzx was hacked by 2 different guys to fix the y2k and possibly other bugs.  So there are 2 different versions in use.  You never know what version someone will be using when they extract your archive.  Incompatible versions cause wacked out dates and file attributes.

2. No matther what lzx you use they all have a definite corruption bug which is usually triggered when you have a dir with several files which are very similar to each other.  Multiple almost identical files will sometimes be corrupted.  Many years ago when I did the tests it corrupted my game archive EVERY time, always in the gfx dir.

3. Other miscellaneous bugs.

This is why I was forced to stop using lzx many years ago.