Bug 415723

Summary:	[libzip] Ark doesn't preserve symlinks in zip files
Product:	[Applications] ark	Reporter:	John S. <jman012345>
Component:	plugins	Assignee:	Ragnar Thomsen <rthomsen6>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	major	CC:	christian, elvis.angelaccio, felipelorenzzon, firma.bio, frp.bissey, justin.zobel, kde, rthomsen6, yule2000
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	19.04.3
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description John S. 2019-12-30 22:35:18 UTC

SUMMARY
After unpacking a zip file with symlinks using Ark, the symlinks appear as regular files and don't point anywhere.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Create a test directory
2. Create any file within the directory
3. Create a symlink to the file
4. Create a zip archive (I did this with the `zip` utility, not sure if results are different when using Ark)
5. Delete the original files
6. Extract the zip archive using Ark

OBSERVED RESULT
Symlinks appear as regular files instead of symlinks.

EXPECTED RESULT
Symlinks should be preserved as links to their target files.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: Fedora 31, kernel 5.3.16
KDE Plasma Version: 5.17.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.64.0
Qt Version: 5.12.5

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I tested extracting the same archive with the `unzip` utility and the GNOME archive manager on an Ubuntu 18.04 virtual machine and symlinks were preserved in both cases. I've used previous versions of Ark on zip files with symlinks successfully.

Comment 1 Elvis Angelaccio 2020-01-02 12:22:02 UTC

Can you check which zip plugin are you using? (Settings -> Configure Ark -> Plugins)

Comment 2 John S. 2020-01-02 14:27:02 UTC

Looks like it's using libzip. The only other plugin that looks like it handles zip files would be Info-zip, but it says that plugin provides legacy support for zip files. According to Fedora's package manager I have libzip 1.5.2 installed, but I don't know if this package is the same as the plugin that's being used. I can't find a corresponding package for Info-zip.

Comment 3 Elvis Angelaccio 2020-01-06 11:47:57 UTC

Info-zip is the 'zip'/'unzip' CLI program.

Comment 4 Christian Finnberg 2020-03-29 14:15:35 UTC

(In reply to Elvis Angelaccio from comment #3)
> Info-zip is the 'zip'/'unzip' CLI program.

I can confirm that unmarking Libzip makes symlinks to work. The p7zip lib works also

Comment 5 Blazej S 2023-03-25 15:43:17 UTC

(In reply to Christian Finnberg from comment #4)
> (In reply to Elvis Angelaccio from comment #3)
> > Info-zip is the 'zip'/'unzip' CLI program.
> 
> I can confirm that unmarking Libzip makes symlinks to work. The p7zip lib
> works also

Apparently that works only if you first open the archive in Ark, and click Extract in Ark GUI.
When rightclicking the archive -> Extract -> Basically any of the option it doesn't create the symlink.

Comment 6 Blazej S 2023-04-14 11:14:03 UTC

(In reply to Blazej S from comment #5)
> (In reply to Christian Finnberg from comment #4)
> > (In reply to Elvis Angelaccio from comment #3)
> > > Info-zip is the 'zip'/'unzip' CLI program.
> > 
> > I can confirm that unmarking Libzip makes symlinks to work. The p7zip lib
> > works also
> 
> Apparently that works only if you first open the archive in Ark, and click
> Extract in Ark GUI.
> When rightclicking the archive -> Extract -> Basically any of the option it
> doesn't create the symlink.

Turns out you have to close all dolphin sessions for the changes to take effect, so false alarm. Anyway, shouldn't this be mentioned in some kind of FAQ for Ark or its wiki page?

Comment 7 2wxsy58236r3 2023-08-16 14:36:57 UTC

*** Bug 473186 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8 felipelorenzzon 2024-10-08 14:28:18 UTC

(In reply to Blazej S from comment #6)
> (In reply to Blazej S from comment #5)
> > (In reply to Christian Finnberg from comment #4)
> > > (In reply to Elvis Angelaccio from comment #3)
> > > > Info-zip is the 'zip'/'unzip' CLI program.
> > > 
> > > I can confirm that unmarking Libzip makes symlinks to work. The p7zip lib
> > > works also
> > 
> > Apparently that works only if you first open the archive in Ark, and click
> > Extract in Ark GUI.
> > When rightclicking the archive -> Extract -> Basically any of the option it
> > doesn't create the symlink.
> 
> Turns out you have to close all dolphin sessions for the changes to take
> effect, so false alarm. Anyway, shouldn't this be mentioned in some kind of
> FAQ for Ark or its wiki page?

In my system this did not solve the problem. Ark is able to detect it is a link, but extraction does not handle it properly. I've confirmed the terminal command ```unzip``` works properly for my folder.

Operating System: Manjaro Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.1.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.5.0
Qt Version: 6.7.2
Kernel Version: 6.10.11-2-MANJARO (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 15.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Product Name: Inspiron 7580

Comment 9 Timothy B 2025-08-06 03:15:45 UTC

Can reproduce with Ark 25.04.3 and KDE Frameworks 6.16. This happened when I unzipped a cursor theme from https://github.com/catppuccin/cursors/releases/tag/v2.0.0 to ~/.local/share/icons. It caused some of the cursors for the Catppuccin theme variant I downloaded to appear blank in System Settings because of the symlinks being copied as files containing the supposed target location (see https://github.com/catppuccin/cursors/issues/69).