File names truncated at 31 characters

[Plextor]

File names and directory names are now truncated at 31 characters when saving. Exists in version 1.0 a new setting for this?

Plextor

[Adoby]

No. When saving books the filenames are not truncated. (Not that I have noticed at least.)

When adding and storing books inside the calibre library, the paths and filenames may very well be truncated, but you should really not be looking up the skirts of calibre like that!

Limitations of the filesystem and operating system may make truncated names and paths necessary. But in the GUI you can still access the books using the full names.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Plextor

File names and directory names are now truncated at 31 characters when saving. Exists in version 1.0 a new setting for this?

Plextor

Listen to Adoby
AND
move your library close to root (\) with a short pathname so the remains CAN be available for long titles

eg.

C:\mylib

[BetterRed]

In Windows the author and book folder names are shortened to 36 characters or thereabouts, and the format file names are shortened to 66 characters or thereabouts

I use the words 'shortened & thereabouts' because I'm not sure its always simple truncation.

I think Calibre has always done this on Windows, or at least it has since I started using it in 2011. AFAIK its a means of overcoming the limitations that Windows places on path name lengths.

BR

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by Plextor

File names and directory names are now truncated at 31 characters when saving. Exists in version 1.0 a new setting for this?

Plextor

I am seeing the same thing. Filenames that used to be 36 characters are now being truncated at 31 characters in Calibre on Windows 64. This seems to be new behavior for either Calibre or Windows, and it is causing me headaches. Yes, I know one shouldn't peek under the hood, but it means duplicate filenames in some cases, and I end up having to work around it.

[Adoby]

One possibility is that you at some time recently moved the calibre library or renamed it. Afterwards you experienced problems and added all the books in the library to the library again. Then you could end up with duplicates in the calibre library. One book that calibre knows about, and one that calibre has lost their track of.

The library maintenance functions should be able to fix the problem.

If you moved the calibre library so the path became a little longer, then the files would have to be more truncated now, just as you describe.

I seem to recall an update some time ago when the length of the paths/filenames were updated. Shortened. If it was long ago since you updated calibre that might have something to do with it as well. But it shouldn't cause any problem, except when trying to rebuild the calibre library. Then the new filenames/paths would be shorter.

To avoid this problem avoid having the calibre library at a place with a long path. Preferably just use the C:\mybooks or something like that, like theducks suggests.

I don't use Windows so I don't experience this problem and I am not sure how you can best avoid the his problem in the future. The safest way to move the calibre library from one Windows computer to another could be to use exactly the same paths on both computers. If that isn't possible, make sure that the new path is shorter. If you need to use a longer path, use the GUI and copy the books from one library to another.

Another way to avoid problems with Windows and limitations for the paths is that you could start using Linux to run calibre. Perhaps in a VM. VirtualBox is nice, and free.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by Adoby

One possibility is that you at some time recently moved the calibre library or renamed it. Afterwards you experienced problems and added all the books in the library to the library again. Then you could end up with duplicates in the calibre library. One book that calibre knows about, and one that calibre has lost their track of.

Nope, haven't done anything except upgrade Calibre to v1.0. Not a huge deal, but annoying. For example, I sometimes transfer books to my iPad, but with duplicate filenames, only the last one ends up on the iPad unless I rename the files, which I am now doing.

Of course, this only happens on very long filenames, so it's not a huge problem, but still...

[Plextor]

I'm back on 0.9.44. For me, the long filenames are more important than the cover grid and the faster loading of the database. My library has many titles with long names.

Something must have been changed in the storage routine. I hope, that this will be reversed soon.

Plextor

PS: This happens in Win XP, Win 7 and Win 8 since the update to version 1.0

[AnotherCat]

I have tested loading files into Calibre 1.0 (Windows) and am not having the same experience. As before the file names are truncated to keep within the Windows path length restriction but I get file names in the Calibre library folder way longer than 31 characters; just taking one random example the file name length was 49 characters when truncated.

Along the lines Adoby suggested already, I do have my libraries in their own folder straight off the root of the drive though which will result in shorter paths, and hence less truncation, than if one uses the default Calibre library location. It is so long since I have used the default, but if recall correctly the default is somewhere in the C:\User\username\etc\etc path?? which is long; much longer than it appears in Explorer if one is just looking at the Windows Libraries path directly under the Desktop.

Maybe the algorithm that shares the path length restriction truncation between the author folder name length and the book file name length has changed but it does not, for me anyway, result in file lengths being restricted to 31 characters. In fact I have noticed nothing yet that grabs my attention at all, compared to the truncations of earlier versions.

[BetterRed]

@AnotherCat -

Windows 7-SP1 64bit
Calibre 1.0 64bit

I still have Author folder names being truncated at 36
I still have Book folder names being truncated at 36 then appended with ' (book.id)'.

Maybe it depends on process used when adding books.

Many of my books start out with meaningless file names and either no or meaningless metadata. So I have Add Books configured to use the filename for the metadata. After I add a book I enter the correct Title and Author directly into the spreadsheet cells. Hence my Author and Book folder names are almost always the result of renames.

BR

[icallaci]

I should have been more explicit. The title of the book, as it shows in Calibre's interface, is being truncated when naming the file. For example, say the title of the book in Calibre is "This Is One Heck of a Long Filename and Will Demonstrate the Problem", and the author of the book is "I. M. Author." When Calibre saves the file, it truncates the name of the book to "This Is One Heck of a Long File" and then adds the author name, so that the file ends up being called something like "This Is One Heck of a Long File - I_ M_ Author.epub". The part of the filename that is created from the book title is now truncated to 31 characters, whereas previously it used (approx.) 36 characters (I believe it was 36 characters, but I haven't counted in a while. It was definitely more than 31 characters.). Anyway, I have ended up with duplicate filenames because of this, but only on l-o-n-g book names.

[Adoby]

Why do you care about how the book is named inside the calibre library?

And why did you add the same books twice to the library?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by icallaci

I should have been more explicit. The title of the book, as it shows in Calibre's interface, is being truncated when naming the file. For example, say the title of the book in Calibre is "This Is One Heck of a Long Filename and Will Demonstrate the Problem", and the author of the book is "I. M. Author." When Calibre saves the file, it truncates the name of the book to "This Is One Heck of a Long File" and then adds the author name, so that the file ends up being called something like "This Is One Heck of a Long File - I_ M_ Author.epub". The part of the filename that is created from the book title is now truncated to 31 characters, whereas previously it used (approx.) 36 characters (I believe it was 36 characters, but I haven't counted in a while. It was definitely more than 31 characters.). Anyway, I have ended up with duplicate filenames because of this, but only on l-o-n-g book names.

@icallaci

Its been like that for the 2 years I've been using Calibre.

But I cant see any difference between latest and earlier versions of Calibre, which is what the OP seemed to be implying in his first post.

BTW when I save the two Stiglitz books in my example to disk they still get the same name and Part 2 overwrites Part 1 <sigh>

Lessons of the North Atlantic Crisis for Economic TheoStiglitz Professor of Economics at Columbia University.epub

Its mainly a problem with academic publications written by a prof and a phalanx of PhD students

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Adoby

Why do you care about how the book is named inside the calibre library?

And why did you add the same books twice to the library?

If you are asking me, firstly I would have thought Blind Freddy could figure out that the attachment was to illustrate my observations, rather than reality. And they are not the same book - they are blah blah Part 1 and blah blah Part 2

And see my prior post about Save to Disk - I do care about that.

And please don't tell me how to manage my data on my disks

BR

[Adoby]

Would running calibre in Linux allow calibre to save the file correctly?

Originally Posted by BetterRed

And please don't tell me how to manage my data on my disks

My questions wasn't directed at you, but at icallaci.

Also I suspect that there are two different problems discussed. How calibre store books in the calibre library and how calibre saves books outside the library. At least I am a little confused. I will refrain from commenting any more.