Some catalog can use long file path, but some cannot.

[manzurfahim]

Hello everyone,

I have this strange issue. I worked with a catalog from 2022 today, and after my work is done, I tried to close it, but it won't do the catalog backup, saying the file path would exceed the max length for the OS. But I have other catalogs in folders that contains longer file path, and they backup just fine. I was thinking this could be an issue with older LR catalog, so I created a new one and imported from the old one but it is still the same issue. I am running Windows 11 Pro.

I have enabled Win32 long paths from gpedit.msc, and still having problems.

I have many other catalogs with longer filenames, and they work and backup fine.

Please advise.

[Ian Lyons]

Your screenshot is displaying an error whan I try to view it. Best you upload again.

[GoldingD]

Could be the previews

[manzurfahim]

The top folder has a short file path, but lightroom refuses to backup catalog. The bottom one has a longer filepath, but LR works and can backup catalog fine, no issues.

[richardplondon]

Could this be to do with "(" and ")" bracket characters used in the file / folder naming? Error messages sometimes only mention one possible cause for rejection (perhaps, the most usual), when others do also exist.

All kinds of difficulty can arise with 'special' characters like ( ) - and what even counts as a 'special' character is uncertain. Something that has never caused any problem before, may yet do so in some new context.

So it is best IMO to play safe. I had terrible trouble once, from someone having used semicolons habitually in their naming (but if they had used commas, it would have been perfectly fine). Square brackets might be OK instead of standard brackets, but personally I would not risk those either.

I personally restrict my naming strictly to A-Z, a-z, 0-9, space, dash, underscore, comma but I fully accept that accented characters and the like may be important to someone else.

[manzurfahim]

I should've mentioned that I thought of that and tried it too, as you can see from the second photo, no "(" or ")" present in the file path. It didn't help 😔