There's also no way to predict all the bad things that can happen to an encoded file in transit. This will cause UUDeview to work harder at parsing the input file. Unfortunately, there's a downside. Normally, when UUDeview tells you that it has successfully decoded a file, you can be fairly certain that the result is exactly what was originally sent. In Desperate mode, this may no longer be true.
Desperate mode tries to decode any data that can be identified.
This means that there may well be gaps in the data or other incorrectly-retrieved information. As the name implies, you should really use Desperate mode when you need to get something anything from an encoded file. If Desperate mode doesn't help, you can try looking at the Debug Info. Sometimes the Debug Info will tell you enough to manually edit the encoded file and repair it. Whatever happens, remember to turn off Decode Info and Desperate mode when you're done wrestling with your troublesome file.