Unable to Copy Plugin Directory - 200+ Files

[Max4k 721]

Im backing up my My Document Plugin directory and get this message - 200+ files wont transfer to another hard drive so I can keep backups because the file name is too large ?

 

I've running Windows 7 w/ 2 SSD drives in RAID 0 and not sure if I formatted it wrong ?  Usually when about to Format NTFS, it asks about the block size, but I usually leave it as default.

According to AS SSD, if  msahci is all green letters and says OK, it's good.  I've had issues in past where I had some feature disabled in Bios and it had Red letters and ahci or something, but to fix it, you have to totally reload Windows fresh with Bios option set correctly.

 

I do have a program called Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Professional that does advanced things.  Im guessing that is my only option to back ?  When it does backups, it creates it's own synthetic type ISO file and it will expand into a new folder of my choice.

 

[Max4k 721]

It looks like it's NAM with their huge folder names like -   Road, One-Way Road, and Avenue 

How do these .dat files work ?  Are they stationary files ? or do they have internal code that updates over time inside the file ?

 

I though this was all resolved after Windows 95 and Windows XP for long names

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

What's the pathname of the destination folder you tried to copy to? If it's more than one-deep, create a new folder at the root of your drive and give it a short name.

If that doesn't work, then you could try reorganizing your plugins folder, shortening some folder names and even collapsing unnecessary levels of folders.

Another workaround: First zip your whole plugins tree into one big zip, 7-zip or RAR file (hiding all of its long paths inside). Then put that simple file into your backup location. Note: Windoze knows about zip files and tries to display them in its file manager, so it could still find a way to barf; so you might need one of those other containers to protect Windoze from trying too hard to "help" you.

[Max4k 721]

It's weird, I have not seen this issue in few years.  Even weirder is my PC has like 5 hard drives.  I've experienced issues where copying a folder like this from 1 drive to another will produce this error-- but have other drives that don't  report error and copy everything.    I have not tried this with SimCity.

The Paragon program I have pretty much does the Zip method you mention.  I did a google search and saw some mention of using a Shell terminal, like Dos to do things, but that seems a bit too over the top

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

There's some information about this in the following topic which might be useful:
 

 

Basically this is a limitation of Windows and rest assured there's nothing wrong with your drives or file system setup. As it happens, NTFS supports much greater than this limit, and it was restricted to 260 characters in versions of the operating system before Windows 10 provided an option to change this behaviour.

As a workaround, I've found how extracting archives using 7-Zip gets around the limitation. So perhaps in addition to what @jeffryfisher said, it might be worth zipping up a folder into a zip file. Place this where you'd like to have the files copied into, and then use the "Extract Here" option which appears on right click. The files should be copied in with no errors. It is worth noting though that SC4 (and other programs) are unable to load Plugins which which encounter the path limit.

Thus I categorically do not recommend trying this under any circumstances! 
(Unless knowing what one is doing for a specific purpose.)

For archival purposes, files indeed might as well simply be zipped up instead.

For a proof of concept though, I tried this replicating the test environment with how I received the error upon copying from a zip using Windows file explorer.

As follows:

 

And then with the same name, using 7-Zip to extract it and it was copied into the folder successfully:

Of course, there will be other file managers than 7-Zip which can do this also. When processing files greater than 260 characters for the path length, the reason is because they don't have the archaic limitation which older versions of Windows have. Also keep in mind how this method makes it not possible to move, copy, rename, or delete the file in Windows file explorer. The right click options disappear, and I had to rely on Shift deleting from 7-Zip to make it be removed (or renaming is another option).

So yeah, not a wise idea to workaround this given the limitations. Better play it safe and stick to a folder structure with 260 or fewer characters, and there are tools available which can scan to locate which paths use the most characters. That way to know which are worth renaming, where others will have much more leeway.

[Max4k 721]

Ok, this is good info thanks.  I was looking around and some suggestions are to re-name and shorten the names ... but that is not possible because the game database wont find the files or cause a mess

[CorinaMarie 29,574]

2 hours ago, Max4k said:

I was looking around and some suggestions are to re-name and shorten the names ... but that is not possible because the game database wont find the files or cause a mess

SC4 doesn't care at all about what the folders are named other than as it relates to the order in which it loads files. Same goes for the file names before the extension.