hiteksoftware.com

[Jim Beck]

Hello everyone,

Can you tell me if there is a file length limit, eg. 255 chars including directories, for example, when backing up a directory structure with sub-directories, nested to about 6 levels deep.

I was taking a backup using JABACK7 and then did a restore from the zip file, to verify the files.

I have found some files missing, and they seem to have a long directory structure in common.

Could you tell me if there is a limitation that you are aware of.

I am running on Windows 2000 server

[Robert]

that is a good one.. I dont believe we have tested or come accross this issue before. Can you check the exact length of a filepath that fails, and post it here..

[Jim Beck]

here is a filepath that has not been selected

common\dotnetnuke\modules\webwarehouse\WWStore_02.00.03_Source\DotNetNukeStore\Providers\AddressProviders\DefaultAddressProvider\Providers\SqlDataProvider\bin\Debug\DotNetNuke.Modules.Store.Providers.Address.DefaultAddressProvider.SqlDataProvider.pdb (251 chars)

and here is one that was selected

common\dotnetnuke\modules\webwarehouse\WWStore_02.00.03_Source\DotNetNukeStore\Providers\AddressProviders\DefaultAddressProvider\Providers\SqlDataProvider\bin\Debug\DotNetNuke.Modules.Store.Providers.Address.DefaultAddressProvider.pdb (235 chars)

any help would be appreciated.

[Robert]

Seems like this is a windows path length issue. I tried a simple mkdir from msdos and it failed for longer path lengths.. seems like it could be 256 chars..

This worked
C:\junk>mkdir common\dotnetnuke\modules\webwarehouse\WWStore_02.00.03_Source\DotNetNukeStore\Providers\AddressProviders\DefaultAddressProvider\Providers\SqlDataProvider\bin\Debug\test1\test2\test3\test4\test5\test6\test7\test8\test9\test1\test2\test3

this did not work

C:\junk>mkdir common\dotnetnuke\modules\webwarehouse\WWStore_02.00.03_Source\DotNetNukeStore\Providers\AddressProviders\DefaultAddressProvider\Providers\SqlDataProvider\bin\Debug\test1\test2\test3\test4\test5\test6\test7\test8\test9\test1\test2\test3\test4\test5\test6

The error was:
The full path of common\dotnetnuke\modules\webwarehouse\WWStore_02.00.03_Source\DotNetNukeStore\Providers\AddressProviders\DefaultAddressProvider\Providers\SqlDataProvider\bin\Debug\test1\test2\test3\test4\test5\test6\test7\test8\test9\test1\test2\test3\test4\test5\test6 is too long.

[Jim Beck]

Now that I have discovered the file length limit is 258 characters, I have 2 further questions to ask when using Jaback7.

1. Can I set an alert, so that when this happens I am aware of it, as I just happened to notice it as part of my testing, when I checked the restore against the backup.

2. I have also noticed that empty directories on the source, do not seem to be backed up, as they are not in my restore.
I would have thought they would need to exist, as they may be required, so can I set the software to include empty directories, when taking a backup.

[Robert]

did the zip task give any error when this occurred?
was the zip task exit code > 0 when this happened?

If yes, one way would be to set an email notification profile for this task and email yourself when this zip task exit code >0

Zip entries list by files, and I do not think it can stuff an empty directory path into the ZIP entry list without an actual file.

[Jim Beck]

The job ran successfully, ie the task exit code was zero, because I am using the exit code value to send me different emails.

This is why I hope there is something I can use to let me know when the long filepath/empty directory.

As a point of interest, I tried to Winzip an empty three level directory,
test/empty/something/ and it created an empty Winzip file file, which show the directories under the properties and viewed in Folders(explorer style) but I couldn't get it to restore.....yet

[melvin]

1) is your long path on windows or unix? I could not even create a new folder to test on windows XP when the path is big. I get the following error:
Unable to create new folder 'test'
The specified path is invalid.

2) On my winzip 9.x, it cannot zip empty folders.. I get an empty zip file with no entries.

[Jim Beck]

The operating system is Windows 2000 server.

An example of a long filepath/name is as shown below, which is 263 chars long:-

D:\webshare\common\dotnetnuke\modules\webwarehouse\WWStore_02.00.03_Source\DotNetNukeStore\Providers\AddressProviders\DefaultAddressProvider\Providers\SqlDataProvider\bin\Debug\DotNetNuke.Modules.Store.Providers.Address.DefaultAddressProvider.SqlDataProvider.pdb

The thing I don't understand is how I can have a filepath this long if it is invalid

[Robert]

It seems like a frontpage created path? maybe it can be done via frontpage but not manually through windows explorer..

or was this path on a linux/unix webserver and copied over?

[Jim Beck]

The file was created via dotnetnuke, which is a software package that sits on top of ASP.NET and SQL server, running on a Windows platform.

(You can find out about the package at http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ if you really want )