mithrandi@elvardein:~> darcs --version
2.1.0 (release)
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp> darcs get
http://slipgate.za.net/~mithrandi/darcs/Methanal/trunk methanal
Finished getting.
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp> cd methanal 
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp/methanal> darcs check --complete
The repository is consistent!
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp/methanal> darcs optimize --uncompress
Optimizing (un)compression of patches...
Optimizing (un)compression of inventories...
Done optimizing!
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp/methanal> darcs check --complete     
The repository is consistent!
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp/methanal> darcs optimize --compress  
Optimizing (un)compression of patches...
Optimizing (un)compression of inventories...
Done optimizing!
mithrandi@elvardein:~/tmp/methanal> darcs check --complete   
Unapplicable patch:
Mon Oct 29 15:39:54 SAST 2007  Jonathan Jacobs <jj@quotemaster.co.za>
  * Support inline labels for CheckboxInputs.
darcs: ./methanal/static/styles/methanal.css: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No
such file or directory)

The repository is publicly accessible, so this should be consistently
reproducible from anywhere with internet access.

Forgot to mention that the check failure is due to several of the oldest patches
in the repository that seem to be missing; they don't show up in darcs changes
either.

Thank you very much for reporting this. I hope that this problem has not caused you 
to lose data or too much time.

I am able to reproduce the problem exactly as you describe it using darcs 2.1.2 
(release). The check failure also happens if I leave out the darcs check --
uncompress:

> $ darcs get http://slipgate.za.net/~mithrandi/darcs/Methanal/trunk methanal
> Finished getting.
> $ cd methanal
> $ darcs check --complete
> The repository is consistent!
> $ darcs optimize --compress
> Optimizing (un)compression of patches...
> Optimizing (un)compression of inventories...
> Done optimizing!
> $ darcs check --complete
> Unapplicable patch:
> Mon Oct 29 14:39:54 CET 2007  Jonathan Jacobs <jj@quotemaster.co.za>
>   * Support inline labels for CheckboxInputs.
> darcs: ./methanal/static/styles/methanal.css: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No 
such file or directory)
>
> $

So it seems that what we need, initially at least, is for someone to boil this down 
to a test case of a more manageable size. Any volunteers for this task?

Thanks and best regards
Thorkil

I ran into this bug independently and constructed the following test case below.
I originally had a very similar error message to the original reported but after
boiling down it changed into

Looks like we have a difference...
Nothing

Inconsistent repository!

I strongly suspect that it's still the same underlying problem though. It seems
to be related to the line "Starting with tag:" disappearing from
_darcs/inventory at some point, though that's just a guess based on my
observations so far.

darcs init --old-fashioned
touch foo
darcs rec -a -m'foo' -l --author=me@me
darcs tag --author=me@me foo
darcs check
darcs optimize --reorder
darcs check
darcs optimize --compress
darcs check

I'm taking ownership of this for now as I intend to actively work on it, but
would very much appreciate input about the precise format of correct inventory
files, or to have someone more experienced with repo formats than me take this over.

OK, so it seems like current darcs doesn't support reading compressed
inventories, at least from non-hashed repos. Anyone know why this is?

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 20:13:32 -0000, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:
> OK, so it seems like current darcs doesn't support reading compressed
> inventories, at least from non-hashed repos. Anyone know why this is?

If I may idly speculate: I'll bet this was just a simple oversight and
that we never expected that inventory files would be compressed.

Hi Ganesh, Any news on this?  
In the meantime, I'm going to mark this as a release target for 2.4 :-)

Actually, it was fixed by this patch, but I messed up the formatting of 
the commit message by introducing an space between 'issue' and '1248'.

Tue May 12 21:54:29 BST 2009  Ganesh Sittampalam <ganesh@earth.li>
   * resolve issue 1248: support compressed inventories for darcs-1 repos
   This is important since optimize --compress can create them

On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 20:41:16 +0100, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:
> Actually, it was fixed by this patch, but I messed up the formatting of  
> the commit message by introducing an space between 'issue' and '1248'.
>
> Tue May 12 21:54:29 BST 2009  Ganesh Sittampalam <ganesh@earth.li>
>   * resolve issue 1248: support compressed inventories for darcs-1 repos
>   This is important since optimize --compress can create them

Oh! I should have thought to do darcs changes -p 1248.
Thanks!