"Destination Path Too Long"

I'm making a backup using the Explorer "burn" control.

It goes for a while then says "Destination path too long". It shows the name of a folder "debug" and I have several with that name so I don't know what is too long. I have already deleted my 3 most recent projects (because projects have a "debug" folder) but the problem still keeps happening. The dialog box that shows the name of the file being burned probably does not help because I suspect it's running in another thread so the file name that it gets stuck on has nothing to do with the folder/file that causes a problem. In any event the file it gets stuck on is on a path that has been burned dozens of times in the past.

Has anybody found a solution to this problem? This is a big time-waster, IMO.

broiyan said:

I'm making a backup using the Explorer "burn" control.

It goes for a while then says "Destination path too long". It shows the name of a folder "debug" and I have several with that name so I don't know what is too long. I have already deleted my 3 most recent projects (because projects have a "debug" folder) but the problem still keeps happening. The dialog box that shows the name of the file being burned probably does not help because I suspect it's running in another thread so the file name that it gets stuck on has nothing to do with the folder/file that causes a problem. In any event the file it gets stuck on is on a path that has been burned dozens of times in the past.

Has anybody found a solution to this problem? This is a big time-waster, IMO.

I think they are saying it is too long not a un-useable name. Path has a max of 132 caracters so.

it may be something like C:\users\usrname\appdata\program name\project name\debug that may be too long

K

I know it's not an unusable name. "Debug" is a very common name for a folder.

You might just have to restart your machine, go into dos by a startup disk, then type. the command:

Format C: /S

-Just kidding, don't do the above; totally a joke. The action item i reccomend is to:

A> Copy the Files to a shorter path
B> Put important data into a single folder and create a virtual drive to the really long path. EXAMPLE to use in CMD prompt:

Subst Z: "C:\Really\Really\Really\Long\But\Valid\Pathname\with\the\files\you\are\trying\to\backup"

This way you will create a "z:" drive to the furthest descended folder.

Please try the above and let me know how it goes.

DanielHieb, this suggestion of yours does not look practical. There's not going to be much data in a path like c:\users\owner\documents\really\really\really\Long\Path\way\down\there. I don't want to back up small amounts of data, but rather the entire c:\users\owner\documents.

Also, if I repeat your method several times for different folders it would be a lot of work because I have a lot of folders. And then if my disk crashes I would have to have recorded some way to put all the little pieces together. In a nutshell, thanks but your method is not practical.

You might just have to restart your machine, go into dos by a startup disk, then type. the command:

Format C: /S

Even in jest this is a ridiculous thing to Post in a Help Forum...

Even if it may be amusing to you...

logicearth, I sorry but I don't understand your post. If I backup the contents of Z: drive as suggested by DanielHeib, if my disk crashes I would have to restore c:\users\owner\documents then I would have to do a another restore for the long path folder. That's why I said it's not practical, because there are multiple restores involved.

The other thing that is not practical about the suggestion is the suggestion "put important data in a single folder". That would be a disaster for organization.

What are you backing up to?

Windows kernel actually has a max path size of like 32k but the Explorer api and mot programs should accept paths of 240 characters or less. CD ROMs though have higher restrictions including a painful max path depth of 8 folders :/

So it might be the location your backuing up to thats the problem.