Problem reading files on shared drive after upgrading 4.0.12.to 4.1.4

[Martin Kirk]

I have recently upgraded from 4.0.12. to 4.1.4. I am running a Linux guest (RHEL5) on a Windows 7 host.

I am using the VM to test development of a web-based PHP application, and all my files are edited and maintained in the Windows 7 file system, which is mounted as a shared drive on the host system. I am running Apache 2.0 on the gust system to process and display the web pages.

Since the change, the formatting of my web pages has gone awry, apparently because some of the files are not being read correctly. As an example, Apache is reporting that it is having problems reading my CSS file. Looking at the error in the Apache error console, and clicking the filename, it comes up with a lot of unreadable characters, much as you would expect if you open a binary file in a text editor.

If I use a text editor on the Linux guest system to open the CSS file, it looks fine. Also, it appears to be having no problems running the PHP scripts, which are also plain text files, and edited and maintained with the same tools.

If I reload 4.0.12, the old (correct) behaviour returns, which would seem to rule out problems in the shared files themselves.

It is as if something has changed in the handling of shared drives which is affecting the content of files under some circumstances. Something to do with character set handling suggests itself, but that would just be an uniformed guest.