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MacTCP DNR file naming mystery

MacTCP DNR file naming mystery

CNET staff
2 min read
We recently covered the issue of the MacTCP DNR file being officially dropped (or not) from Mac OS 9.0.4. Several readers, who deleted the file from their Mac OS 9.0.4 System Folders after reading this, had a mysterious result: After a restart, the file returned again but with a different name. The exact name< varied from user to user. R. Lynn Rardin writes: "A file appeared with the same icon but named "Command-V" (actually the character generated by typing Command-V)." Jerry Kindall found a file that was empty but had the same type and creator as MacTCP DNR (cdev/mtcp). He adds that the file was named "^B^@ (an ASCII 2 followed by an ASCII 0). The name doesn't show up in the Finder, of course; I had to paste it into BBEdit, turn on Show Invisibles, and use the Show button in the ASCII Table window to figure out what the characters were. If I delete the file I get a new one, usually with a different weird name." Craig Cobban's file had such an unusual set of characters in its name that we won't even try reproduce it here. If he deleted the file, it returned with the same odd name. C.K. Sample similarly adds: "If I throw away the MacTCP DNR file, it does return, but corrupted under a mangled file name." So far, Nick Chapman is the only reader to report any connection problems associated with this odd renamed file. He writes: "In the past, prior OS 9, occasionally I would find myself unable to connect to anything; looking in the System Folder, I would find that the DNR file, or at least the file with that icon, had its name changed to a line of gooblydegook. Deleting this file and restarting the computer used to create a new, okay DNR file. However, a few weeks ago, the DNR file began regularly changing its name back to the weird characters and became unusable. The work-around I adopted was to create a folder with this name. I was hoping this would result in a correctly named and functioning DNR file being created. Instead, no DNR file is created and my system functions just fine."