Vault 2016 - long pathnames / long filenames

By Kim Hyde

On a recent site-visit to a client implementing Vault for their BIM environment an issue arose when testing a combination of long pathnames and filenames.  Following guidance from their management team, a very complex folder structure was uploaded to Vault via a drag-and-drop process, then a file with a long filename was checked into Vault in an attempt to establish what the syntax character limit is when uploaded to Vault. The image below shows the `x-y’ Word document with a deliberately long filename.

On this `try-to-break-it’ exercise it is worth noting that although Vault Explorer became frozen during the import and the task was ended to close the application, on returning to VE the file had actually been recorded (as seen above) in the database (via SQL), but could not be copied to the local workspace via `Get/Checkout Files’ and displayed the error at the top of this article.

So the limits are:

Path name/Folder name                  must be less than 248 characters

File name                                          must be less than 260 characters

Happy Vaulting!