warning, it doesn't exist. Verify that the file name is correct.

[peexel]

After updating to version 2.2 I encountered this problem, it doesn't happen with all files but with some. when I try to open a file from Designer 2 by clicking on file and then open, once I have found the file I click on the file and then confirm by clicking on the open button, a warning with a message immediately appears. inside where you can see the path to the file "that he says he can't find", written in a strange way (abbreviated and with special symbols, (in my example I covered the path) like machine language) the file is present and is in the correct path, but has somehow renamed either the path or the file, the latter I confirm is being renamed.

After several attempts to open the file, I discovered that inside the "open" window I can click with the right mouse button on the file and from the menu click on open, magically the file opens, under the still open open window Designer 2 so I am forced to close it to be able to access Designer 2, the file has opened but its name has changed and is no longer the same (it writes the beginning of the file name then an S positioned vertically with the extension . AFD

Thanks for your help.

[walt.farrell]

From that error message it looks like your file is in a file system that only supports the very old Windows restriction of 8-character names. 

What is your Z drive?

Can you provide a screen recording showing all this happening? I'm a little unclear what it is that you're initially clicking on, that then gives you a dialog with an Open button.

Thanks.

[peexel]

Thanks for the reply, my operating system is windows 10, I have never had any problems until now.

disk Z: which you can see is a portable external hhd disk, I had 3 inserted which is why it chose that letter for its drive.

I was making a backup, given the situation.

for work I tend to give a fairly long name to the file because it has to contain a certain amount of information, but I've never had any problems, before I was working with version 2.1 and everything was fine now that error appears.

I don't do anything strange, I open a file like you would open any file in Designer 2

file/open

the Designer file search window opens, once I have found the file, I double-click on the file or press the open button, at this point the file should load into Designer, but this does not happen and that warning message pops up ( which I attached)

if I open the file directly from the external disk, then I go to the folder where the file is contained and I click on it twice, the file opens in Designer without problems, but it has changed the name of the file to a shortened one and with those special characters ending with the .AFD

If it helps I would also add, in the Designer 2.2 project there are 2 files open with the two different procedures:

the first file is opened from the external disk, apparently it seems to work, but then while trying to save the file Designer crashes (by moving the mouse pointer over the bar where the file name is the information I get is strange " name, path, are written in a strange way, as if abbreviated with a special symbol and finally the extension is .AFD)

the second file (the copy of the same file) is opened from the internal disk of the PC SSD, the file opens normally and everything works normally, where I can also save the file (name and path are regular and the file extension is the regular one .afdesigner)

Other problem.

Starting Designer 2.2
I go to file/open, the Designer open window opens, I search for the file I need, once I find the file I don't open it straight away I just click on it once then it shows me a thumbnail of my project at the bottom left, then you see the file and it also recognizes the path otherwise it wouldn't have shown me the preview of my project, everything seems fine, when I press the open button to open the file, Designer completely crashes, it closes without any kind of warning or message.

I also do this step to open the file, a strange method.

file/open opens the Designer window to load the file.
I select the file I need to open but I open it by clicking on it with the right mouse button and from the file menu click open, the file opens in Designer 2 but is covered by the loading window, because logically I didn't use Designer's open window to open the file, then closing the window, the file below loaded, but in this case Designer did not close suddenly, but when I go to save the file as, Designer 2.2 crashes and closes without leaving any message .

If I open the same file from the external disk, the file opens, but I have found that even in this case when I go to save the file as from Designer the program closes immediately.

if I copy the file from the external disk to the internal one on the PC all these problems disappear.

the problem seems somehow related to the external disk, but it doesn't happen with all the files, only with some!!!! This is new because it never did this before the update.

I can't even install the Designer 2.1 version because it won't open the 2.2 files anymore

I copied the files to another external hdd disk, identical to the original hdd disk, same problem. (but if I copy the same file onto the internal SSD disk of the PC I don't have this problem) it seems that external disks suffer from this problem, with the Designer 2.1 version I have never had these problems, it's the first time I've encountered I've been in this situation since I have Designer since version 2.0

I tried to change the system, I opened the same file with an iPad pro, with Designer 2.2 installed and connected to the external hhd disk in question, the file opens normally if I do the open procedure from the iPad version, I can't save it from the iPad pro to the disk perhaps it depends on the type of formatting, so the file opens regularly but does not give me the possibility to create folders and save files (I need to understand this step better, it's been a while since I have Apple systems)

there is something wrong it seems with the disk but I'm not totally sure, the same problem occurs on multiple external media and the file is not damaged, because copied and pasted onto an SSD it works regularly.

I tried a third hhd with the same file, same problem, if I open it with the classic procedure (file/open) I get the error warning.

Thanks for your help.

[Lee D]

@peexel Part of the issue is that Windows doesn't like paths that are longer than 260 characters. So for the moment I recommend changing your file structure/naming process to have a shorter path.

In the recent 2.2 update we changed the way files are handed and introduced a lock file, see this FAQ article. Due to the long file path this may also affect the creation of the lock file when trying to open the files.

[peexel]

Thanks so much for your help guys, following your directions I solved the problem simply by moving the files to the first subfolder. (fortunately a simple thing that doesn't take up an infinite amount of time).

I wanted to ask you for advice, I read that I can exceed the "path" character limit in Windows 10, so I no longer have the problem of the length of file paths. (I often create several subfolders due to different categories of the same item).

But there is a procedure to do in the windows registry file. Perhaps this is a limit of 32bit, when we moved to 64bit years ago and this limit is still anchored to the old 32bit.

Will I create problems for Windows (Win10 64bit) if I remove that limit?
since I also work with a Mac...doesn't the Mac operating system have these file path length problems? Because I can do it on a PC, but I don't know how to remove it on a Mac.