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Ext4 => ExFAT -- how can I find long filenames and prohibited characters?
drmimosa:
Hello,
I have a FLAC library of about 32,000 files, currently stored on an Ext4 filesystem. I would like to move all the files to a drive with an ExFAT filesystem.
In the past when I have done similar migrations, I have run into the following problems:
1. Filelength of classical music titles is too long - these files get ignored and not moved.
2. Some songs have prohibited characters in the titles which are now in Ext4 filenames, and can't be moved to ExFAT.
3. Mystery problems - Some files don't copy
--- Quote ---From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
Max. filename length 255 characters
Allowed characters in filenames: all Unicode characters except U+0000 (NUL) through U+001F (US) / (slash) \ (backslash) : (colon) * (asterisk) ? (question mark) " (quote) < (less than) > (greater than) and | (pipe)
(encoding in UTF-16LE)
--- End quote ---
So, what often happens is I attempt a copy, and go on a wild goose chase needle in a haystack ride to find all the files which failed to copy, and just those files. And even then, it's tough to verify that I have copied all the files because some of the filenames have changed - rsync, for example, can't be used to compare the two /Music folders - I'm relying only on the total number of files in the /Music folder to confirm I copied everything.
Is there a way to address these problems with Rename, Move, Copy files?
Can I set a max filename length (that includes the filepath), for example, of 200 characters, leaving a buffer for the 255 filename max?
Can I remove any of the above prohibited characters?
Do I have to consider moving from a filesystem with owner and group permissions to one without those?
Does anybody have any other suggestions?
I'm posting it here because it is a very "linux-y" problem, but may repost in the Windows forum in a bit as well. Thanks for everyone's time and consideration here, any time spent thinking on this problem would be greatly appreciated!
mwillems:
So, at the risk of giving a very "linux forum" answer, have you considered whether you really need the files to be on an ExFAT drive? It's an unreliable filesystem with lots of limitations, and if all you want is cross-platform readability, the NTFS drivers for Linux are quite mature and I believe they support longer filenames now too.
But assuming ExFAT is mandatory, when you say the copy fails, have you actually tried JRiver's rename, move, copy function or are you doing the copying with filesystem tools? My recollection is that Rename, Move, Copy already takes into account and removes certain special characters automatically. I see it doing that whenever I use it to rename files on samba shares that contain, say, colons or other special characters. It may even enforce file lengths. If you've tried rename, move, copy and it failed, we should compare notes on settings and see what might be different.
As an alternative if rename, move copy isn't working right for you, you could try and use the "handheld" system to sync to a directory as I think the handheld system may be more prepared to deal with weird filesystem problems since it's writing to random devices many of which may have used ExFAT historically.
drmimosa:
Thank you mwlliams, I should have stated my original requirement - I'd like to be able to read the files on multiple OS without issues: Linux, Windows, OSX. Future proofing the library to be flexible across operating systems, and read from a Mac Mini among other things.
Another thing is my wife only uses Macs, so I'd like to have any future backups of photos and media to be easily accesible, in case I can't give tech support for some reason.
Is there a better way to do this? Is there a better linux/osX compatible filesystem than ExFAT?
drmimosa:
--- Quote from: mwillems on April 24, 2023, 01:54:35 pm ---But assuming ExFAT is mandatory, when you say the copy fails, have you actually tried JRiver's rename, move, copy function or are you doing the copying with filesystem tools? My recollection is that Rename, Move, Copy already takes into account and removes certain special characters automatically. I see it doing that whenever I use it to rename files on samba shares that contain, say, colons or other special characters. It may even enforce file lengths. If you've tried rename, move, copy and it failed, we should compare notes on settings and see what might be different.
As an alternative if rename, move copy isn't working right for you, you could try and use the "handheld" system to sync to a directory as I think the handheld system may be more prepared to deal with weird filesystem problems since it's writing to random devices many of which may have used ExFAT historically.
--- End quote ---
I haven't tried to move all of the files using Rename Move Copy in a long time, years ago in 2018 was the last full migration of the files to Ext4. Recently I tried and failed using rsync. With your vote of confidence I'll give it another shot with the MC Move tool and report back.
Thanks!
Awesome Donkey:
With macOS, it only has read-only NTFS support by default. You *can* enable write support for it too, but it's experimental and in my own past experience it wasn't that good (plus it'll clutter your NTFS volumes with those cursed . dot files for every file). There's third-party NTFS drivers for macOS like Paragon or Tuxera (which aren't free however with them those dot files aren't created so no clutter to constantly remove), however your mileage may vary there. NTFS is my favored file system for storage between Windows and Linux, but with macOS in the mix you may have to buy an app like Paragon to get decent NTFS write speeds.
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