Leslie Worley

Q: Why do I get error that filenames longer than 31 characters are unsupported?

I have read more than one post on this happening on Mavericks, yet I see nothing that indicates anything other than yep, it is an intermittent problem. To summarize:

When saving a file, or exporting to PDF, or printing to PDF, etc., the filesystem will sometimes throw an exception:

1. Error dialog presents: "Names longer than 31 characters are not supporred on the destination volumne."

2. If the filename is shortened, it is "accepted" yet no file is saved at the destination folder.

3. (In my observation) The previously used destination folder is not remembered for saving/exporting subsequent files. (This seems consistent with the files not actually being saved, despite shorter filenames.

 

This is very problematic, and  it has occurred numerous times. Disk Utility shows no problems with the hard disk (using Verify). Rebooting seems to clear it up (sometimes), but it is pretty silly for a Mac to require a reboot like that (that sounds like Windows).

 

Any help / response would be appreciated.

Posted on Feb 2, 2014 11:05 AM

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Q: Why do I get error that filenames longer than 31 characters are unsupported?

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  • by Junping Wu,

    Junping Wu Junping Wu Apr 20, 2015 11:48 AM in response to Leslie Worley
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 20, 2015 11:48 AM in response to Leslie Worley

    i have found a way to solve this problem, that is try to chang the folder name which you cann't save the files location.

    it looks like easy, have a fun!

  • by hobobill,

    hobobill hobobill May 15, 2015 11:12 AM in response to floyd42
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 15, 2015 11:12 AM in response to floyd42

    This works in Yosemite too 10.10.2  I only had to use that workaround one time, and the system then apparently corrected itself, allowing me to 'print to pdf' from Firefox with a very long name. Thanks!

  • by antfromlondon,

    antfromlondon antfromlondon May 29, 2015 9:26 AM in response to Oregon Ducky
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 29, 2015 9:26 AM in response to Oregon Ducky

    Thanks Oregon Ducky - it worked for me.

    I just moved the hidden drives as you suggested and straight away - a cure!

    All fixed.

    I'm travelling to Oregon (from London UK) later this year. I hope everybody in Oregon is as helpful as you!

    Best wishes.

    Ant

  • by 4norbert,

    4norbert 4norbert Aug 3, 2015 7:17 AM in response to Leslie Worley
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 3, 2015 7:17 AM in response to Leslie Worley

    Hi colleagues,

    I recently faced the same problem with this unsupported length of filenames (particularly with Mail- and TextEdit-files). Searching the Internet I found a hint that led me to a solution (Apple Mail Fehler beim Speichern von Anhängen - Namen mit mehr als 31 ...)(sorry, german only).

     

    According to that hint the problem is caused by the usage of an external Windows-(MS-DOS)-formatted drive (i.e. USB-stick or else) , where the Mac seems to take over this formatting-infos and „remembers“ them when you later want to save a file on your disk.

     

    Recapitulating the steps I did before I was confronted with that annoying error message I suggest:

    you better not open, edit, save and close a file while it’s still located on the MS-DOS-stick (SD-card…) but copy or move it to the Mac, edit and save it there, then copy or move it back to the external drive.

     

    Simply transferring files from one drive to the other does not cause a problem but to open , edit , save and close a file directly on the ext. drive leads to the unwanted error-message (most probably you also get a message telling you, that „Versions“ is not supported when saving and closing the file on that drive).

     

    So I did the following to get rid of the 31-character limitation:

    1. go to ~/Library, search for the „Caches“-folder, delete it

    2. search for the „Caches“-folder in Macintosh HD/Library and delete it (admin identification may be necessary)

    3. go to Macintosh HD/System/Library and again delete the „Caches“-folder herein (admin-ID needed).

    4. restart the Computer (the Cache-folders are rebuilt automatically).

     

    Proofing file-saving in Mail and TextEdit brought up no more error messages.

     

    For me it works and I hope it will for you.

     

    All the best

    Norbert

     

    PS: I found this reply by Niel on the same issue which I think supports the theory of how the target drive is formatted.

    Bildschirmfoto 2015-08-03 um 16.00.46.png

  • by MRM Productions,

    MRM Productions MRM Productions Sep 18, 2016 10:32 AM in response to Udo from Berlin
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 18, 2016 10:32 AM in response to Udo from Berlin

    Thanks, Udo and Kurt. This solved my problem. I'm on El Capitan. The surprising thing was that having one of these special characters in a file name ANYWHERE on the hard drive will prevent me from saving a file with a long name anywhere else on the drive (saving from an Adobe CC app). OSX seems to allow the file names with characters that cause these problems, but then it will cause a problem later on when saving to that drive from specific apps.

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