FS2020 maximum path length is too small for the community folder, can you please resolve this?

i had some problem today with new update. And it’s all about Microsoft.
I had to install my game on another ssd and now i have an issue about too long filenames when i’m copying to my community folder.
New version have more subfolders that has become out of limit of filesystem.

path is
F:\WpSystem\S-1-5-21-7555345473-1456586222-3848173965-1001\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_97675b3d8b558\LocalCache\Packages\Community

and it’s too long
how to realocate game i haven’t found
the path is generated by system of course

The folder name that begins with “S-1-5-xxx” looks like a security ID for the file system. How did you copy over the folders? It looks like you didn’t copy over the folder/file permissions.

yes it is a system folder, it must be inside my user appdata folder, but because of installing over another SSD windows makes system folder there, and allocate all files just like it wanted to.

Usualy community folder locates inside system folders (user/appdata) and there must be folder/file permisions to copy there.

all names were generated by system allthough

Is the new disk formatted to NTFS? Last time i saw this error the disk was on FAT32

yes of course it’s NTFS, but that filesystem have restrictions too, path cannot be more than 256 symbols more. And there’s an opinion that exactly microsoft have that limitation

u can try yourself. system do not allow you to make folders inside one another unlimited. Once it tells you about too long filenames

I found it out by donwloading and copying files manualy. Flybywire installer just updated mod and didn’t tells anything. After update mod was unplayable, it just didn’t apear.

Previous versions of mod works just fine

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I move folder Community to another location and made a symbolic link. It didn’t worked too. MSFS sees content inside, but do not load any of it

I’ve been wondering about FS2020 and the way it is handling paths from some time.

First and foremost, I’ve read reports of a problem where using a non ASCII character in the user account name is causing FS2020 to fail accessing the files properly. This is supposed to be transparently handled when using the UCS2 Windows API (‘W’), instead of the ANSI Windows API (‘A’).

In addition, the path you’re indicating is the absolute minimum to access every single file in the “Community” folder and is therefore already 151 characters long, out of the 260 available (MAX_PATH). This doesn’t leave much remaining characters for any sub-folder.

Both of these are making me wondering whether UWP apps aren’t supporting the extended-length path prefix, or is it just because FS2020 is using the ANSI API flavor and therefore can’t benefit from the extended-length path prefix??!

The Windows API has many functions that also have Unicode versions to permit an extended-length path for a maximum total path length of 32,767 characters.

This type of path is composed of components separated by backslashes, each up to the value returned in the lpMaximumComponentLength parameter of the GetVolumeInformation function (this value is commonly 255 characters).

To specify an extended-length path, use the "\?" prefix.

For example, "\\?\D:\*very long path* ".

Maximum Path Length Limitation - Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs

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i’m not quite understand i guess. Is there a way to solve this somehow?

Yes there seems to be one solution readily provisioned for in the Windows API, it is just FS2020 might not be using it… I’d suggest you create a Q&A topic for this one, because it is not just the A320N which is affected.

Latest Community/Dev Q&A: Ask Questions Here topics - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

PS: or just flag your post for a moderator to move this topic into the Q&A questions?

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i’m kind of newbee, how can i flag this topic?

Go to your post at the top, click the ..., then click the :black_flag: icon, select “Something Else” and type your request. A moderator will pick it up and might accept doing it for you.

I’d suggest if you do, to also change the title to something more relevant, like for example:

“FS2020 maximum path length is too small for the community folder, can you please resolve this?”

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I haven’t that option. Just renamed the post, could you flag it please?

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done !

update: topic can’t be moved, it will require creating a new one over there.

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You are great!

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Symblink and junctions doesn’t work. The main trouble is about length of the path.

MSFS Addons Linker doesn’t work either

understood, i’m going to try

windows do that limitation, not NTFS :slight_smile:

you can try regedit and set

“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem”:LongPathsEnabled to “1”

See also:

( and then you came to link which CptLucky8 mentioned )

But as @CptLucky8 mentioned… I’am also not sure about whether MSFS support that.

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could that way ruin my system? worth it to try just enable long paths?

that could be really easy

How did that folder end up in a weird location like that anyway?

My Community folder path looks like this:

“D:\FlightSimulator2020\Community”