GPG - Invalid packet

[Harper, Jason (GE Consumer Finance)]

We're going to attempt the ascii-armor now. We're also going to ask the sender to retrieve the file and see if he can decrypt it. 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Shaw [mailto:dshaw at jabberwocky.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 11:48 AM
To: Harper, Jason (GE Consumer Finance)
Cc: gnupg-users at gnupg.org
Subject: Re: GPG - Invalid packet

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 10:46:31AM -0500, Harper, Jason (GE Consumer Finance) wrote:

> We get the file via a program called "Connect Direct" from Sterling 
> Software, which I 'believe' to be a binary transfer program (will have 
> to check).  Also the file itself does not have the neat "----BEGIN PGP 
> MESSAGE----".  When I look at it in VIM it is total gibberish, but 
> there is a noticeable "pgp" within the first 6 characters (e.g. "??  
> PGPÁÂN Ä»??£eÔlã )

That's normal for a binary message.

So, it could be binary being treated as text somewhere.  This is a really common problem.  An easy check is to send the file you received back to the sender.  If it doesn't match, then it got mangled by the transfer.

Another thing to try is to get the sender to turn on ASCII armor.  If your transfer program wants text, give it text :)

David