when reading from an existing file the following line will work correctly:
$byte = @fread($fp,2) or die("ERROR: Can't read from file.");

but the next line will cause the script to "die" no matter if it the beginning or halfway the file.

$byte = @fread($fp,1) or die("ERROR: Can't read from file.");

the ini file is the standard ini file with the timeout set to 0 so it doesnt time out. the script is run in an MSDos shell in windows.. It works fine till it needs to read 1 single byte from a file..