a google search yielded these results:
When you decompress a shn you may occasionally see an error. If so, did you check the shns against the md5s first (see above)? If the md5 check fails, you know there will be some kind of problem. If you have a corrupt shn, it's best to delete it and obtain an uncorrupted copy. Here are some typical error reports and what they mean:
"Premature EOF on compressed stream"- The shn file is shorter than it's supposed to be, often due to a file corruption, perhaps caused by an error during download. Alternatively your hard drive may be full. Depending on the version of Shorten, you may get a note to contact Softsound. Don't bother with that, since they can't fix the music file.
"Failed to write decompressed stream"- Your hard drive is too full.
"Sanity check fails trying to decode function: (number)"- Usually the result of a corrupt file.
"No magic number"- Indicates a corrupt file.
If the md5 check passes but you still get an error message indicating corruption, it's an unfortunate situation. The shn may have been corrupted at the time it was compressed from wav. This happens rarely but does occur. The typical remedy is to have the original "seeder" create a fresh shn for distribution.