Miskatonic University Press

convmv solves rsync encoding problem

unix

I was using rsync to copy files from a big external backup drive to an even bigger external backup drive I just got. (It's a 500 gig Seagate FreeAgent Go, which requires only the USB connection for power.) I got a bunch of these errors:

rsync: recv_generator: failed to stat
"/path/Rough-Guide-to-Tango/15-N\#351stor-Marconi-Tr\#355o---Cuando-T\#372-No-Est\#341s.mp3":
Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character (84)

I installed convmv ("converts filenames from one encoding to another"), ran convmv -f latin1 -t utf-8 *, ran it again with --notest, and then rsync worked without any trouble. Nice!