Mystery Bug with file name longer than 128 characters

[timba]

Hi - here's the scenario:

1) rip a CD, allowing it to auto-query AMG
2) in some cases, a track name will have more than 128 characters in the AMG (or other online) database
3) the MP3 created by dBPA will have more than 128 characters on the NTFS hard drive - and then can't be renamed, deleted, etc.

Is it possible for a future version of dBPA to check for this and truncate the file name?

Is there an easy global workaround - I've managed to use DOS to get tedious and limited results, but ...

[dbfan]

Re: Mystery Bug with file name longer than 128 characters

Windows is not limited to 128 char filenames, the system can handle 65000 characters, but explorer might be limited to 260 total.

[timba]

solution

Hi - I finally figured out what was going on here. It turns out that there's a limit of 256 characters for the entire path.

So, let's say you have a file that lives in a nest of folders, where the total characters (including backlashes) in the path exceeds 256. In this case, if you try to delete, move or rename the file, it won't work - REGARDLESS of the characters in THAT file - it's only the total that matters.

So, in my case, if I temporarily shorten the names of the parent folder or folders, I can then shorten the name of the file and then reinstate the original folder names. Once you understand the trick it's very easy to work around.