Longer folder and path names truncated

[mville]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Thanks, but it is indeed very confusing. I have no idea what is the [origpath] - is it the full path or relative to the folder that I have selected for conversion, or??? Apparently the drive letter is not part of the [origpath]. Questions like this that I did not find useful answers to led me to run an apparently inappropriate conversion. I use the program too rarely to really learn the details.

Confusing maybe, but then that is what the forum and help pages are for e.g. dBpoweramp Naming.

Without prior knowledge and making assumptions only leads to user errors and/or the idea that there is a bug in the software.

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

What an offensive remark, thank you very much. Really giving me pleasure in paying for and using your software.
What I said is that the help pages are not as helpful as I would have wished. Yes, I am a software professional and has been so for 40 years, and I have written several manuals myself. So I know what I am talking about.
I still consider it a bug that the program does not warn against too long path names (if that's the case - I'm not sure, but I don't want to waste more time on investigating it).
If I had received the warning I would not have been in a situation in which my lack of understanding of the finer details of the output file specification (which I could not read about in the help file) would have led to a problem.
I also consider it a bug that the changes to the resulting path names are so arbitrary - sometimes a middle folder name got truncated - sometimes the very end of the file name/extension got truncated - sometimes a few characters near the end of the filename and maybe including the very end got truncated. Yes, it was so, I have spent several hours repairing each one of the 250+ errors.
It's still an error that the upside down question mark got replaced.
Please don't try to give the impression that your software (and your documentation) is without bugs.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Another related problem is that some characters are not transferred correctly from the source to the target. One example is the character '¿' which becomes '½'.
...../Kim

What is the source? What is the target? Do source and target support the same character set?


Dat Ei

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

What is the source? What is the target? Do source and target support the same character set?
Dat Ei

Sure they do. Source was the local Windows 10 C: drive, target was a network disk on another computer running exactly ths same Win10 version. I was able to correct the wrong characters in WinExplorer without any problems. By the way, the source file names (with the upside down question marks) were generated by dbPoweramp CD Ripper...
...../Kim

[schmidj]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

KSA,

Be aware that Dat Ei and Mville are not employees of Illustrate/dBpoweramp, they are users just like you and I, just trying to help you out. Only Spoon and Peter P are part of Illustrate, they both write the software.

Both Dat and Mville have been in the IT business for many years and are in a position to help you out, if you stop accusing them of writing buggy software. They didn't write any of the software.

I've used the converter for many years also. Like anything else, you may have problems if you don't read the instructions, including the help files, and in the case of the naming strings, the very many posts on this forum. And if you still don't understand something about the naming strings and you ask a question here, without being accusatory, someone, often another user like yourself will try to explain it to you in a way you can understand. But, with all apologies, if you continue to call people offensive, we'll just all ignore you. We aren't being paid to help you. This is a user forum with a fair amount of input from the software developers. User means you and I, please be civil in your posts.

BTW, have you priced support prices from Microsoft or for that matter, most any application program developer? It rarely comes for free. And when it does, the support often comes from someone with no IT background in a call bank reading prepared scripts to you, not any real support. I actually found a real bug in Microsoft Access 2013, Microsoft refunded the $215 they had charged me to investigate, but not the cost of even part of Microsoft Office. And they never, to this day fixed the bug in Access 2013 (although they may have in a more recent version, I haven't tested it.) And it was up to me to find a work-around to the Access bug, no help from Microsoft on that.

Finally what font is displaying the 1/2 instead of the upside down question mark? You do know that many fonts display different symbols for special characters and encode them differently? You might find it worthwhile to examine which character sets show the 1/2 and which the upside down question mark. That issue is most certainly an issue in your configuration of Windows. Particularly since we don't see dozens of users here complaining about that problem.

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Ok, I admit having expressed my frustration a bit more offensive than I should. However, when I am being talked down to I easily get offensive. I am also a sw professional and know about things. One of the people responding gave me the impression that he was working for Illustrate - I apologise for having misunderstood this.

In the particular case the documentation did not answer my question. I was not referred to the forum, but encouraged to just try something. I did, so I don't see how I did something wrong.

KSA,
Finally what font is displaying the 1/2 instead of the upside down question mark? You do know that many fonts display different symbols for special characters and encode them differently? You might find it worthwhile to examine which character sets show the 1/2 and which the upside down question mark. That issue is most certainly an issue in your configuration of Windows. Particularly since we don't see dozens of users here complaining about that problem.

Thanks for trying, but your suggestion cannot explain what I observed. The characters are shown in the file list in Windows Explorer on the same pc, so there is definitely NOT a character set or font issue. Also when I use standard Winfows API calls to read the file lists into the program that I use for comparing the source and target names. Apparently you did not notice that I said that I could easily change the wrong character using Windows Explorer (by just pressing F2 and editing in the file list). So, there is no doubt that the source and target names are different and I am still firmly convinced that there is a bug somewhere in the dbPoweramp software.

[Dat Ei]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Hey ksa,

as schmidj said (Thanks!), I'm an ordinary user like mville, schmidj or you. If you don't want my help, it's ok, but please treat me like someone who wants to help you. I'm in IT for four decades and in professional software developement for nearly three decades. In my company I manage our IT services including our computing centre. But that doesn't count here at all, cause here I'm as a private person who wants to share his experience with dBpa and who wants to help people, who are willing to accept help from other users.

Sure they do. Source was the local Windows 10 C: drive, target was a network disk on another computer running exactly ths same Win10 version.

You've got me wrong. I mean the charactersets in the tags of the source and target files (can depend from the codec).


Dat Ei

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Hi, as I responded to schmidj I apologise for having been a bit more offensive that I should.
However, I feel being talked down to a bit, and that triggers me when I feel that people say something without having understood what I have observed.
In this case I observe that the program changes my folder and file names. It shouldn't, and it's not my fault like I more or less was told.
Yes, I may unintentionally have specified a wrong conversion specification, but then the program should have warned me instead of producing erroneous output.

Hey ksa,
You've got me wrong. I mean the charactersets in the tags of the source and target files (can depend from the codec).

The character sets are not an issue, as I explained to schmidj. The difference is in the file names, not in the tags. The file names of the source and target were definitely different.
I made a little experiment and perhaps I came closer to an explanation:
1) I took one of the flac files with an upside down ? in its name.
2) I converted it to mp3 in the same folder on the local c: disk. The upside down ? was preserved.
3) Then I converted it to mp3 on the network disk. This time the upside down ? was replaced by the ½ character.
4) Then I made a local conversion on the server hosting the network disk. The upside down ? was preserved.
5) Finally, on the server I converted the file to a file on my local pc. The upside down ? was again replaced by the ½ character.

This points to a problem with either the Windows networking software or perhaps how dbPoweramp handles files that are on remote disks.

One would perhaps jump to the conclusion that the Windows software must be faulty, but it's not that easy.
a) When I copy the local file to the network disk using Windows Explorer, the upside down ? is preserved.
b) When I write a program to copy the local file to the network disk the upside down ? is preserved.
c) When I import the local file into Audacity and export it to the network disk as an mp3 file the upside down ? is preserved.
So, it's only when dbPoweramp handles the file that I have seen the character replacement.

[Spoon]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

What is the network file system? what platform is it running on?

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

As I have said a couple of times, standard Windows 10.
It's 64 bit Pro, fully updated to version 20H2.
Client is a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon, server is an Intel NUC.
By the way, here is a view to the file list on my online backup drive (idrive.com). Even here you can see that the two files are having different names (one as written by dbPoweramp, and one after I repaired the name manually):

[Spoon]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

The issue here is we only have one code path, that is if it writes '?' to the local filesystem, that is the filename it tries to write to the network filesystem, it is the same file open call, we do not have 2 code paths depending on where it is writing.

You can enable the debug logs and it will show exactly the filenames to program is writing.

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Hello Sppon,

Thank you for taking this seriously.

I worked out an example showing that there seems to be a problem with the 'Output To' logic in the Music Converter.
Please see the attached PDF file and the two accompanying log files. Should be helpful information for your developers.

...../Kim

[Spoon]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

Run dBpoweramp Control Center >> advanced settings >> 'Filename restricted characters'

click restore default and try the conversion again.

[ksa]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

I did, at it helped. Now the upside down ? is preserved in both situations.
I have never touched the 'Filename restricted characters' setting, and nothing visible changed when I hit the Restore Default button. The table must have been corrupt in some way or another.
I can see that the problem may be that the table did not exist previously in the Registry. The Registry entry was only created (together with a bunch of other entries) when I pressed the Restore Default button.
Perhaps the problem is that the default behavior when the table is missing is out of sync with what should be the default?
...../Kim

[mville]

Re: Longer folder and path names truncated

What an offensive remark, thank you very much.

You can take my observations anyway you choose, but I am sorry if you are offended as I was simply trying to help you.

I stand by my statement and it is something I have learnt in 40 years of working in IT and Music Production. Knowledge is king and making assumptions isn't useful and only leads to problems.