[Firebird-devel] ERROR:Malformed string

[Nikolay S. <nik...@re...>]

Hello, Team!

We receive complaints about Firebird 2.5 being completely broken, to the 
point of being unable to restore previous versions backups.

C:\fb_2.5.0.25782\bin>gbak -r FB20_TEST.fbk FB20_TEST.fdb -user sysdba 
-password masterkey
gbak: ERROR:Malformed string
gbak:Exiting before completion due to errors

We know that to restore backup one needs to specify -fix_fss_metadata 
win1251 switch on the command line.
Users don't understand the need for this switch, and tell us in a pretty 
harsh form about the engine being broken.

Question: why the engine cannot behave in a smart way by default?

Literally, if backup version is less than BCK_ods11_2 imply the use of 
database character set (att_database_dfl_charset) with FIX_FSS_METADATA 
option (isc_dpb_lc_ctype). This will cure 90% of cases: situations when 
database character set is specified.

-- 
Nikolay Samofatov, MBA
Red Soft Corporation
+7 495 668 3735