When I attempt to save a file now, I get an error message saying the number of characters has exceeded the limit of 31 characters. What? That's never been true in an Apple OS. I restarted, ran Disk Permissions and Disk Repair. Same issue. What's going on?
MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), 16 GB Ram; 480 GB SSD
Try to save a file in TextEdit to the Desktop. Do you get the same error?
Interesting. No. I created a test file in Text Edit and saved it with a name that is has more than 31 characters. It saved to the desktop without any error message. What is this suggesting? The error message occurred when I tried to save a PNG image file from a website.
Strange... I attempted to duplicate the issue and it is not happening now. Any thoughts?
I just attempted to re-create the issue again. It first occurred when saving a document sent to me in an email. My second attempt to save the same document did NOT evoke the same 31 character limit message. Strange. I don't know what to make of this.
If you can't reproduce the problem, I don't know what to tell you.
I know. I appreciate the help anyway. Whatever it was, it seems to be gone now. So, maybe just chatting about it was enough. Thanks for being there.
I also have this issue. It ONLY happens when trying to save a photo from Apple Mail. It's never happened before today - wonder if there was an update that created the problem? FYI - I created a text file and it saved fine with a longer file name.
Also an issue for me. Not predictable. It started short after my migration from 10.7 to Yosemite, a few months ago. Today while saving a docx document from mail. I also did experience it while saving a new TextEdit doc.
BukoMan wrote:
Also an issue for me. Not predictable. It started short after my migration from 10.7 to Yosemite, a few months ago. Today while saving a docx document from mail. I also did experience it while saving a new TextEdit doc.
It may have to do with what other software you are running and how often you shutdown(power off not restart) to clear Yosemite's memory (from other blog sites - Yosemite really needs this to keep it from getting scrambled.
I get this type of error message with the MP Navigator software that came with my Cannon Scanner - as I only use this utility when I want to scan to PDF and combine pages in one document - its also the only place I go for really long names 😁
As it is not predictable - it may have something to do with Yosemite killing modules that are not active - so you have some software using a module that is killed - that software sets the restriction on size - so when say mail calls the application - its running but with the size restriction.
If after you have the problem you run this often mentioned here check
http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck
it may so Apple apps getting killed - then again not.
There's a rather long topic in the Mavericks forum on this same subject. User Oregon Ducky found that it's caused by a corrupt Finder .plist file. By "invisible folder" in the text below, Oregon Ducky means the Library folder in your user account. Other users in the topic have noted removing the Finder .plist file also worked for them.
This has happened a couple of times to me. One of them, I paid Apple for a support call and then summarily forgot what we did to fix the issue. Yesterday, I repaired permissions on my main "drive" (an SSD) and ran disk utility on it, and the problem resurfaced. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but it seems suspect.
In any event, I went into the invisible "Library" folder/Preferences and moved the com.apple.finder.plist file to my desktop to force the OS to rebuild it, believing that perhaps the finder preferences file had become corrupted somehow. And, this seems to have solved the problem. To access this hidden folder:
HD > Users > Your Name > Library (now hidden; accessible by using Option key while clicking on Go in Finder menu which will unhide it.
Thnx for the suggestion. I'll try the suggestion of Kurt (removing the finder.plist file) first
Thnx Kurt. I just removed the com.apple.finder.plist file. And also the com.apple.finder.plist.lockfile file.
In case the problem will not show up anymore, I will mention that in 2 months.
[I'm using a MacPro (Model Mid 2010) with a Kingston SSD since 2011. No clean install Yosemite]
AMCarter3 wrote:
When I attempt to save a file now, I get an error message saying the number of characters has exceeded the limit of 31 characters. What? That's never been true in an Apple OS. I restarted, ran Disk Permissions and Disk Repair. Same issue. What's going on?
this post may help you identify the problem or at least find out what is going on - the answer was not a workaround - it actually is explaining why and what to look for.
That explanation is only valid when regarding very old Mac file systems. The problem is that the 31 character limit has been appearing for a small percentage of users right with the current OS, and latest file system they're using.
Kurt Lang wrote:
That explanation is only valid when regarding very old Mac file systems. The problem is that the 31 character limit has been appearing for a small percentage of users right with the current OS, and latest file system they're using.
Well I bet none of them have reported it to apple through feedback or support call.
This seems to have been an off/on thing with OS10 - based on generic search -- so best bet for any who have the problem is to contact apple directly rather than running work-arounds.
Removing the plist files didn't help. I just got the message again. While saving a .doc attachement in Apple Mail that I gave a longer name in the save-as dialogue box. That new name was actually longer than 31 characters.
So I tried a new save, with the file name as received in the mail. No error message, but !! the file was not saved at all at the given destination. I could reproduce this. Spotlight search: The file was not saved somewhere else (except in the mail-downloads folder).
I only could save the file by opening it in MS Word and save-as.
Why is Yosemite limiting file names to 31 characters?
