File renaming

andrewlondon

Hi all,



right firstly, i've been using OSX for about 5 months now and so far havn't had any /real/ problems, everything i've needed to get done i've been able to do. Except one thing, why oh why, when i copy .mp3 files from my server do the names get trimmed down? The Windows server i use doesn't have problems with long filenames, hell my linux laptop doesnt even do this.. it really is getting beyond a joke espically considering the amount of .mp3 files i move around like this.



This is an example of what it is doing to my files

05-50_~2.MP3



I know there are scripts out there that will rename the files from the id3 tags but this really isn't on, i mean im constantly having to do it and some of the files i move around don't have id3 tags which leaves me with .mp3 files that i have to sort through manually and dont know what they are without listening to them, a lot of the time i end up deleting them because i dont know the exact track name.



Now is there a way to stop the system doing this? t really is getting on my nerves.



Thanks

maccrazy

Mac OS X supports 256 characters in file names with almost all characters. MS-DOS format does not, however.

andrewlondon

So why can't i copy files off my Windows XP Professional box without it changing the names, it is changing them when it is copying the files over so the fact that windows xp supports long file names shouldnt really come in to it. This is an OSX problem because like i said, my linux laptop can copy files with no problems whatsoever.

maccrazy

Quote:

Originally posted by AndrewLondon

So why can't i copy files off my Windows XP Professional box without it changing the names, it is changing them when it is copying the files over so the fact that windows xp supports long file names shouldnt really come in to it. This is an OSX problem because like i said, my linux laptop can copy files with no problems whatsoever.

are you copying over a network? I've never had problems with file names. Can you explain the exact method?

zoc

Quote:

Originally posted by MacCrazy

are you copying over a network? I've never had problems with file names. Can you explain the exact method?

I do not have any problem with filenames when transferring file between my XP SP2 (sorry...) and my (lovely) 12" PB using SMB shares (both from the PC to the PB and from the PB to the PC)



I'm using drag'n drop into the finder.

andrewlondon

The files are on a windows xp box and i'm basically copying them to my OSX box from within OSX, so im connecting to the share from OSX and then copying them to my mac like that. It does the same if i connect to a mac share from myt windows box and copy them onto the mac.



I also have problems copying files to my windows shares sometimes, it tells me that the file names contain unsupported characters even though windows supports them.



This is getting to be a right pain, surely it isnt meant to be doing this.

buonrotto

Hm, is it maybe a filesystem thing? Maybe a volume somewhere is formatted fat32 and not NTFS, and the fat32 volume forces the issue when moving files across it?



I rarely see this problem anymore. This used to be very commonplace back in the day when Macs had a 32 character limit, and Windows still liked to force everything down to 8 characters plus extension.

andrewlondon

Every drive on my windows box is NTFS as far as i remember FAT 32 supports long file names anyway? Also why would this effect them being changed when theyre copied to my mac?



Theyve got long file names on my pc so it cant be changing them because of a compatibility problem with the pc.

dfiler

You might try transfering the files via ftp if you can't resolve the naming issue... a single command and blammo! you're done.



Something to watch out for: NTFS and HFS+ each allow file names with characters that aren't valid on the other file system. ftp will stop in it's tracks upon encountering a file name not valid on the destination system. Or at least, that was the case when transfering my billion gigs of mp3s a couple years ago.

andrewlondon

That's one way around the problem but isn't really a soloution, i mean ill have to run an ftp server on my windows box, surely there must be some way around this?

dfiler

True, it's a sloppy work around, but hopefully a quick and feasible one.



OS X has ftp built in so ftp from the windows box to your mac instead of the other way around. (First make sure ftp is enabled in the sharing prefs)

karl kuehn

Quote:

Originally posted by AndrewLondon

Every drive on my windows box is NTFS as far as i remember FAT 32 supports long file names anyway? Also why would this effect them being changed when theyre copied to my mac?



Theyve got long file names on my pc so it cant be changing them because of a compatibility problem with the pc.

FAT 32 only supports 8.3 names. However, there is the "joliet" system running next to it that has a translation table that converts all of these short names to a long name, and provides for a mechanism for creating unique short names from long names (it is where the ~2 comes from).



It sounds like the method you are using is copying the "real" names rather than the Joliet names. I have never seen this happen myself, but have heard about it. I am not sure of the causes, but would suspect that the files were stored on a FAT system at some point.



The FTP thing will probably solve it because the FTP server will use the Joliet names. You might also try connection from the PC to the Mac, this might avoid the particular method that is doing this.

whiterabbit

If you use iTunes, it will automatically rename the files properly to whatever they're supposed to be.

agrosintl

I'm sorry to resurrect such an old topic, but this is *exactly* the problem I'm having at the office that I'm a techie at. We have a Windows 2003 SBS server with an NTFS drive that's shared out, and the same thing happens when accessing the share from a mac OS X machine. Did anyone find a resolution to this?