I run XFE 1.32.1 on a system based on busybox ver. 1.17.2 (most recent) that handles gzip and bzip2 as internal commands. Whenever I in XFE select a file and choose "Add to archive" and select gzip or bzip2, the "Add to archive" pop-up window appears with no text and XFE freezes completely. However, the gz or bz2 archive IS produced correctly, just XFE crashes. The funny part is that if I make a tar,gz or a tar.bz2 it doesn't crash…

FilePanel.cpp forces a "-v" option to both gzip and bzip2 and that's not a valid option in busybox. I have edited that out but it makes no difference. I have also tried an older 1.16.x version of busybox - no difference. Please notice that the .gz and .bz2 archive is generated correctly, just XFE crashes.

Is it possible that XFE is stuck waiting to read some output
from gzip -v, but busybox doesn't provide anything?

If that's the case, maybe you could wrap the busybox gzip and
bzip2 commands in a shell script that "fakes" some output.

I haven't tested this, but it just might work:

#!/bin/sh

GZIP=$(which gzip)
BZIP2=$(which bzip2)
TAR=$(which tar)

mkdir -p $HOME/xfe-hack/

cat << EOF > $HOME/xfe-hack/gzip
#!/bin/sh
${GZIP} "\$@"
echo \$@
EOF

chmod 755 $HOME/xfe-hack/gzip

cat << EOF > $HOME/xfe-hack/bzip2
#!/bin/sh
${BZIP2} "\$@"
echo \$@
EOF

chmod 755 $HOME/xfe-hack/bzip2

cat << EOF > $HOME/xfe-hack/tar
#!/bin/sh
export PATH=$PATH
${TAR} "\$@"
echo \$@
EOF

chmod 755 $HOME/xfe-hack/tar

export PATH=$HOME/xfe-hack:$PATH

exec xfe $@

Bingo, that was it! Busybox's versions of gzip and bzip2 are completely silent and apparently XFE choke on that. I opted for a slightly more primitive version than the one you suggested as I substituted the sym link gzip -> busybox with this script:

#!/bin/sh
echo "Gzip compressing: $@"
/bin/busybox gzip $@
exit 0

Works like a charm. Thanks a lot.

This is nonetheless a bug in XFE. Do the developers monitor this forum, or should a formal bug report be put forward?

OK, I've seen your bug report and workaround. I'll check this next week. Xfe 1.32.2 with many bug fixes is nearly ready but I'll fix (if I can) your issue.
Thanks for your interest in Xfe,
RB

If you have 1.32.2 almost ready there is no reason to delay it due to this bug. Now it is documented and it can wait for the following release.

Thanks a lot for XFE - It's excellent.

I tried to reproduce the bug on my Debian box (replacing /bin/gzip with a link to /bin/busybox), but with no success.
What system do you use?
RB