Unrar Volume Reconstruction Notifications

This article explains how the command-line utility unrar notifies users when a damaged or missing archive volume has been successfully reconstructed. It details the specific terminal messages printed to standard output, the exit codes provided for automated scripts, and the observable changes to the file system upon successful recovery using recovery volumes or recovery records.

Terminal Output Messages

When you initiate volume reconstruction (typically by opening a .rev file or running a recovery command), unrar provides real-time notifications directly in the terminal via standard output (stdout).

As the utility analyzes the archive set, it identifies missing parts and begins reconstruction. The process is communicated through specific status lines:

  • In-Progress Notification: The tool identifies which file is currently being rebuilt with the message:
    Reconstructing [filename]...
  • Per-Volume Success Notification: Once the mathematical parity calculations complete and the volume is written, unrar prints:
    OK or Reconstructed successfully adjacent to or directly below the file being processed.
  • Completion Summary: After all feasible parts are rebuilt, unrar displays a summary line confirming the total number of recovered archives:
    Reconstructed [number] volume(s) followed by a final Done message.

System Exit Codes

For automation and scripting, unrar communicates successful reconstruction programmatically through its exit status code.

When the reconstruction process finishes without critical errors and all required files are successfully rebuilt, unrar terminates with an exit code of 0 (RAR_SUCCESS). A non-zero exit code (such as 1 for non-fatal warnings or 3 for CRC/data corruption failures) signals that the recovery data was insufficient to reconstruct the requested volumes.

Output File Creation

In addition to terminal notifications, successful reconstruction is confirmed on the file system itself. Missing multi-part volumes (such as .partXX.rar) are recreated in the target directory using their original sequential file names. If using the repair command (unrar r), successfully rebuilt data is saved into a new file prefixed with fixed. (e.g., fixed.archive.part01.rar).