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Forum Discussion
Filename Length FAQ wrong?
Hello all, I just acquired an Ultra6 with 18TB of disk space. I have to copy 350GB of "stuff" off a very old NAS (circa 2001). The files are currently located on an old Dell NAS system (running Windows 2000 Appliance).
I did a test run to see how everything is working and ran into an error message. See attached image. (I guess no attached images allowed. here is a link):
Basically it says "filename is too long" I tried this twice with the exact same error message. I also tried this in two ways. First way, I logged into the source NAS and mapped a drive to the new Netgear NAS and copied it. Second way, I used a windows XP PC and mapped a drive to each NAS and tried to copy the file through the PC. Same error in both cases.
The file name that it is getting hung up on is:
"fairchild-tts-teletypesetter-operating-units-for-linotype-machines-c1-0600rgb-001-crop-5096x6560-sc.png"
this file name is 100 characters plus a period and 3 for the extension png. This is a total of 104 characters. The FAQ says "255" unless Chinese or other multibyte character sets are used (not used here). So I thought maybe combined with the file path it might exceed the 255 limit. the file path is 61 characters for a total of 165 characters, far short of the FAQ's 255. I should mention that this file can be easily copied from the old NAS to my PC and vice versa.
Can anyone tell me if I can get this limit back to 255 from whatever it seems to be? This is important because this 350GB file copy is likely to take more than a day and I'd rather not have it stop in the middle of the night and me wake up to find there are "who knows how many" file names of 104 characters or greater.
any help is greatly appreciated!
Eugene
PS is there no way on this BBS to attach photos?!
PPS. I forgot to mention I have the following options set in the ReadyNAS:
English (unicode)
Allow Unicode for user, group and share names UNCHECKED (not enabled)
Enable character encoding conversion for FTP clients. UNCHECKED (not enabled)
Version: Name: RAIDiator-x86 Version: 4.2.23
I did a test run to see how everything is working and ran into an error message. See attached image. (I guess no attached images allowed. here is a link):
Basically it says "filename is too long" I tried this twice with the exact same error message. I also tried this in two ways. First way, I logged into the source NAS and mapped a drive to the new Netgear NAS and copied it. Second way, I used a windows XP PC and mapped a drive to each NAS and tried to copy the file through the PC. Same error in both cases.
The file name that it is getting hung up on is:
"fairchild-tts-teletypesetter-operating-units-for-linotype-machines-c1-0600rgb-001-crop-5096x6560-sc.png"
this file name is 100 characters plus a period and 3 for the extension png. This is a total of 104 characters. The FAQ says "255" unless Chinese or other multibyte character sets are used (not used here). So I thought maybe combined with the file path it might exceed the 255 limit. the file path is 61 characters for a total of 165 characters, far short of the FAQ's 255. I should mention that this file can be easily copied from the old NAS to my PC and vice versa.
Can anyone tell me if I can get this limit back to 255 from whatever it seems to be? This is important because this 350GB file copy is likely to take more than a day and I'd rather not have it stop in the middle of the night and me wake up to find there are "who knows how many" file names of 104 characters or greater.
any help is greatly appreciated!
Eugene
PS is there no way on this BBS to attach photos?!
PPS. I forgot to mention I have the following options set in the ReadyNAS:
English (unicode)
Allow Unicode for user, group and share names UNCHECKED (not enabled)
Enable character encoding conversion for FTP clients. UNCHECKED (not enabled)
Version: Name: RAIDiator-x86 Version: 4.2.23
9 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- The limit applies to the entire path, not just the name itself:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... -questionsWhat is the maximum length of a file name?
Windows usually limits file names to 260 characters. But the file name must actually be shorter than that, since the complete path (such as C:\Program Files\filename.txt) is included in this character count. This is why you might occasionally encounter an error when copying a file with a very long file name to a location that has a longer path than its current location. - not sure I understand this. Complete path plus filename in my case is 160 characters. Why am I having a problem? And as I mentioned, this file (and path) has no problems in windows. I move the file all around all day long no problems. The only problem is when trying to move it to the readynas ultra 6.
- Can you post the full destination path name? The extension counts also.
- \\nas52\shared\eugene\00 Hobbies\Teletype Setting Equipment\fairchild-tts-sales-literature-1\fairchild-tts-teletypesetter-operating-units-for-linotype-machines-c1-0600rgb-001-crop-5096x6560-sc.png
That is the entire path. I counted and it is 197 characters (I was off by 30 in my previous post). But this is neither greater than 255 (ReadyNas FAQ) nor longer than 260 (windows limit as posted by StephenB). So why am I having a problem?
thanks again - Also, is the source pathname shorter than this?
The only way I know to resolve these errors is to shorten the pathname. Though I am puzzled about why you are seeing the error with relatively few characters. Some applications will fail at with shorter names (it depends on how much space they allocate to stored it). But I wouldn't expect backup to be one of them. - thanks for your reply. I have 350GB of files that need to move to the ReadyNAS. If ReadyNAS can't handle files that are clearly within the limits of windows, I can't use this. There is no way I can sift through hundreds of thousands of files and try to reduce the filename. Sounds like ReadyNAS isn't ready for prime time.
Do tech support people from netgear ever read these forums? Or do I need to reach out to them directly? - You need to contact support yourself. Support.netgear.com will work. If you are within 90 days of purchase or have a support contract you can also call.
- Can you try to setup a backup task on the destination NAS to pull the data over?
Are the error messages being generated by windows or the destination readynas? - hi there. thanks for your post. I have not tried a backup job. I am brand new to the unit so I havent had a chance to play with that yet, but it does sound like a good idea. I will try that. The error message is generated by windows, but only when trying to copy this file to the readynas. This error occurs in both windows XP and 2000 appliance (the source nas is windows appliance)
thanks. I'll look into the back up idea
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