Frequently_Asked_Questions

Why is DPR freely available?

The National Archives of Australia has licensed DPR under the GNU General Public License version 3 (the GPL3). Under the terms of the GPL, you are permitted to modify and redistribute the DPR code. You are free to copy and re-use both the source code and the finished DPR product.

The task of digital preservation, regardless of the method used, will always involve working with data in ways likely to cause changes. We are confident that the treatment of digital data by DPR is an effective means of digital preservation, but we don't just ask you to take our word for that. Our source code is available for all to see so that anyone may verify the actions of DPR.

We believe that conducting our software development in an open and public way will better serve to demonstrate the transparency and authenticity of our method of digital preservation. In addition, making our code and documentation freely available has made it easy for others to collaborate with us on further development of the software.

Why is DPR only binary normalising my files?

When processing files In the Preservation Facility, the DPR uses Xena to normalise the files. When you start DPR, it loads all the plugins from the plugins directory.

If you attempt to normalise a certain file format and the corresponding plugin is either not in the plugins directory or does not exist (for example there is no plugin that currently handles video formats), Xena will binary normalise the input file. Also, if you are processing files that are already preservation file formats (such as PNG), Xena will detect the file format and binary normalise it.

If every file being processed is a binary normalised, the quality assurance step is bypassed and you will see the following message:

There are no data objects which require quality assurance, so this step has been automatically passed.

DPR gives an uncaught Java exception message when I run it

If DPR cannot write a log to its logging location it will stop running with an Java exception message saying either java.lang.IllegalStateException: Could not create Handler for Log File or java.lang.IllegalStateException: Log file directory could not be created! This issue can be resolved by running DPR as an administrative user. To do this right click on the Digital Preservation Recorder shortcut in your Start Menua and choose Run as Administrator.