.apps transerfered from FTP won't launch

[ppc_michael]

I'm on a Powerbook in my dorm room. My iBook is at home. There are some apps on my iBook that I need here. So I logged in with an FTP client and downloaded the .app "folders" (as the FTP client represented them) to my Powerbook. Things seem to be okay, the app displays the appropriate icon and everything. But it will not launch. No error messages. I really need those apps.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[mad jew]

Which apps do you need? Most should be fine, but some apps need other files to work properly - generally the ones you had to use an installer for.

 

[crazzyeddie]

You need to zip them first... or tar, gz, etc. You can do that from the terminal, so if you enable ssh on your iBook at home, you can use terminal commands to zip the file on the other machine (zipping using AFP/FTP is horribly slow because your computer does the work, essentially transferring the data back and forth, etc.). So, in short, enable ssh on the iBook, use that to tar/gz the apps, then transfer them using ftp/sftp.

 

[ppc_michael]

Sound Studio, some word processors, TeX frontends. I tried even downloading Chess and that wouldn't even run.

I remember Stuffit used to have a bug where it didn't unstuff .app bundles properly, but there was a workaround. Do you think this could be the same thing?

 

[ppc_michael]

You need to zip them first... or tar, gz, etc. You can do that from the terminal, so if you enable ssh on your iBook at home, you can use terminal commands to zip the file on the other machine (zipping using AFP/FTP is horribly slow because your computer does the work, essentially transferring the data back and forth, etc.). So, in short, enable ssh on the iBook, use that to tar/gz the apps, then transfer them using ftp/sftp.

Hooray! Thanks very much.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Resource forks were not transfered over. That caused your issue. So do as above and all will be fine.

 

[ppc_michael]

This is working great. Thank you so much.

Now, please excuse my Terminal n00b-ness, but is there a way I can transfer the files using SSH with Terminal? It seems just a wee bit odd to be going back and forth between Terminal and my FTP client.