webtorrent/webtorrent-desktop

Special Characters in Filenames

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#1147 opened on Mar 2, 2017

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acceptedbuggood first contributionhelp wanted

Description

On the latest version of webtorrent desktop when I try to seed a torrent that has files whose filename contains characters such as an ellipsis or apostrophe the character is replaced with a question mark character making it impossible to seed the original file without having to rename it and make another torrent altogether. I don't get this though when I create a new torrent using the same file however. Only when the using the .torrent file. I used the same torrent file in several other clients and didn't have this issue.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
javascriptelectronnodejs
Domain
desktop
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
familiarity with Node.js file systemunderstanding of torrent metadata (benode)
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
30
Research direction
The issue is that special characters (e.g., ellipsis, apostrophe) in filenames are replaced with '?' when seeding from a .torrent file, but not when creating a new torrent. This suggests an encoding problem when reading filenames from the .torrent metadata. Investigate how webtorrent desktop parses the bencoded metadata, particularly the 'name' and 'files' keys, and how it handles UTF 8 vs. other encodings. Check the relevant code in webtorrent and the desktop app for any character substitution logic.