Problem
Files in OneDrive / SharePoint cannot be opened, are already in use or cannot be attached to emails.
Challenge
Client called to report intermittent issues with files either not opening, not saving correctly or at all, and being unable to add to emails as attachments. Some files opening with 8.3 file names
Eg “Filena~1.doc” instead of “Filename is longer.doc”
Solution
One of the solutions was to free up space which helped for a few files, however the problem returned swiftly. After inspecting the impressive collection of folders and files carefully organised by the client, we realised that the path names for files were getting very long. We advised the client to rename some folders.
Result
Client is now able to open and save files again as expected.
Lesson
It is always a prudent idea to organise your files, as many of us have “stuff” or “things” folders on our computers. In this case however, Microsoft deemed you to be TOO organised, or at the very least a little overly descriptive when naming files and folders. If your folder structure is very big, particularly deep, you should be careful when moving it into subfolders as it adds length to all the file paths inside. When they exceed 260, the program won’t work properly and programs may fail to see them.
Action
Limits can now be removed for windows 10+ users. If you are feeling techie and feel you might benefit from extremely long filepaths get in touch with me – ben@octagontech.com.
Ben
