Archive File Name Size

[RobUSMC]

I have been running in issues with doing system backups to Drop Box or from one drive to another with CA archive file names being too long that are not supported by Windows 7.  Same issue when I try to delete, open or rename these files.  IS there a way to specify what text, number sequence, etc. that CA automatically adds to the end of the file name?  Here is an example:

 

The file name I gave to this design is Beebe Design 1 but below is what is automatically placed in the CA archive folder

 

C:\Users\Rob\Documents\Chief Architect Premier X6 Data\Archives\Beebe Design 1_e5368972ddc94d0yp452de57fa613191fff7f55e0125cf74258fek9261c0de6

 

What is the last string of text in the file name for?   I could see something like... archive02152015 or similar.

 

Thanks  Rob

[Kbird1]

I believe Win7x64 Explorer Had? still has?  an artificial limit of 255 characters for the length of any file path , though I have not counted what you have up above , paste it into Word , it will tell you on the Status Bar.

 

My archive folder Folder/filenames look similar too yours btw.

 

M

 

http://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/Latest/Troubleshooting/Windows_File_Paths_Longer_Than_255_Characters

 

note MS say the limit is 260

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/file-names-extensions-faq#1TC=windows-7

[RobUSMC]

You are correct with the Window 7 character file size.  When these files get backed up to drop box which adds one more path layer they start to exceed that allowable size.

[Doug_Park]

There is a hash added to the name to make the file unique. Without this there is the possibility of having multiple files vie for the same name in the archive location leading to real confusion and possibly overwriting of the archive. However, we could probably come up with a shorter name.

 

The 260 character limit (counting drive name) is an annoying limitation of Windows. A number of years ago they added support at the file system level for paths up to 32000 characters long. But didn't add that support to Explorer or most other parts of the operating system. So while we could write code to allow Chief to read and write to those longer names fairly easily, the OS limitation would result in those files causing Explorer to fail miserably. For example those long paths would not be able to be deleted from Explorer. This is one of several file system issues that I find very annoying with Windows. This is still a problem in Windows 8.1. I would hope that it would get corrected in Windows 10, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

 

The 255 character limit on a singe file name is actually common among other operating systems. It is the limit for Mac and Linux systems, including smart phones. However, the path name limit on most other systems is a minimum of 1024 characters which is much more reasonable.

 

One thing that you can do is to change the location of your chief data folder to something like "C:\Rob\Documents\CAX6Data\".

 

I would also suggest being more conservative on the length of your file names.

[Kbird1]

What happens if you truncate the autogenerated no#s to say 7 digits? instead of 40 , it's not like I am going to have over a million archives in one Folder, so a 7 digit random number should suffice or even a 7 digit "counting" no# should do it, since many of us have many nested folders in an attempt at folder organisation.

 

Did you try just shortening the Folder name in Explorer Rob? not sure if that permanent if CA's system overwrites with a new 40 digit name when it doesn't find the old one though.

 

M.

[Kiwideziner]

At least we have moved up from the 8 character limit of the old days.

[RobUSMC]

Mick & Others,  Thanks for your input / suggestions...

 

The file name I give for example is "Beebe Design 1".  We use a NAS drive in our office and the path name for this particular file is Y:\CAR Shared Folders\CAR Client Files\2015 Clients\Beebe\Plan Files\Final Plan Files.  These length of a name is never an issue. 

It just when CA add the "_e5368972ddc94d0yp452de57fa613191fff7f55e0125cf74258fek9261c0de6" to the end of the file name is when it become an every time issue that will not allow a copy / paste, rename or delete.

 

I have a backup program that runs every night to backup all files on our NAS drive to our business Drop Box system. Out of over 760GB of data, the ONLY files that will not backup are the CA archive files. To allow a full system backup to complete successfully, I have set the program to skip the CA archive folder. Kind of defeats the purpose of having an archive folder that can't be backed up in the event of a system crash.  I guess I'll just have to live with it.  I know it's a Windows 7 issue but CA has to share some of the issue with such a long (unknown) post file name added extension.  

 

Again, if that extension could be something like the date then dash 01, 02, 03, etc. so the file name could be something like...

"Y:\CAR Shared Folders\CAR Client Files\2015 Clients\Beebe\Plan Files\Final Plan Files_031115-01.   A 10 character extension versus the above 60 character extension

 

I am NOT a programmer and don't know how these things work but would think something could be done since these are the ONLY files in our entire company with this issue.

 

Thanks

[Doug_Park]

Chief isn't creating archive folders with names too long for the filesystem on the OS. So doing a backup should always work, unless the backup software or drop box is not able to support standard length filenames.

 

It is possible that the path to your drop box makes the name longer. Maybe you can arrange to have it be a little shorter. From your description I'm not sure what is going on but it doesn't sound like the flaw in the process is that the path name is too long, but that it is too long for where it is getting copied to. Shortening our hash might allow your setup to work, but it would fail again if you created names that pushed the length limits of the file system.

 

I do agree that we should come up with a shorter unique identifier. But I don't think it will prevent the problem you are having for all cases.

[Kbird1]

Its a mapped Drive from his description Doug , not on his local box , and the BU software sees the "mapped drive" during BU to Dropbox.

 

What happens if he manually rename the Archive folders to something shorter , does Chief auto change them or just write new ones as it thinks the archive is "gone" when you rename them?

 

You (net admin) might have to make the Nas Mapping something like below with a warning to other Employees as everyones Mapped drives will need to be redone.

 

Y:\CAR SF\CAR CF\2015 Clients\Beebe\Plans\Final

[Doug_Park]

Chief bases the hash on the full pathname so renaming the archive would orphan it as far as Chief is concerned.

 

I don't know why the files won't backup. That seems to be a flaw with the backup software. I've never heard of backup software failing because of file name length limits. The only thing I can imagine is that the backup is trying to recreate the full directory tree in a subdirectory on the destination drive. In theory the backup software could support long 32000 character path names, but that would make it impossible for Windows Explorer to access them directly without restoring them to their original locations.