The failures may be due to a limit on file path/name length there was a change to the limit at some point during 17's development.
Yeah, that's not it.
But if the length were the problem wouldn't continue to fail when I try again? I try again and the file is renamed into the same length that it would have been renamed before when it failed.
Exactly. In the case where I encountered this recently (which was May 25-26, but I think I saw it once before as well), this is what I'd do...
1. Select a whole bunch of files to rename (most of which were in the M:\ source directory given above, but a handful of which were actually in my "new recordings" T drive). It shouldn't matter, they were all going to the same "place".
2. Do the Rename, Move, and Copy using a preset I've long-had for renaming TV Shows.
3. All but 20 of the original 200 or so would work, but the ones that failed were seemingly random (some were on the T drive originally, some were on M, and nothing was similar about them tagging or otherwise).
4. Without even closing the view I had open when I started this operation, I'd reselect the files, and do it again. I wouldn't even bother to single out the individual files that were broken, because the Rename tool is smart enough not to touch things already in the right destination. I'd just Control-A, Right-Click. And Rename again. Same exact settings.
5. Five more would "work" but 15 would still fail.
6. Repeat steps 4-5 until they all "went". Usually the last couple would only work one at a time.
There's no way that's from a file name length restriction. Besides, the "problem" with file name lengths was that MC truncates them anyway, not refuses to rename, so that's not relevant in any case.
Not sure about the errors I have never had such a thing happen and I have used the tool many times for several different reasons.
Oh, me too. This isn't a super-long-standing problem, as I've used this same workflow literally for YEARS without issue. Something seems to be broken.
I'm just totally guessing, but I think it MIGHT have something to do with the cover art and other "sidecar" files. MC does actually, I believe, try to relocate cover art files and JRSidecar.xml files (if it knows about them) when you do a Rename, Move, and Copy on files. I'm making stuff up here, but it seems like it was working fine before the more recent changes in this area were made.
I think something broke, and it only affects files randomly.
I do small Rename, Move, and Copy operations on files at work regularly (twice today), as it is part of an established work-flow I have at the office. But that's always 1-5 files at a time, and I haven't seen any issues. But in this case, I was trying to move a bunch. Maybe it was 80, maybe 200? I didn't write it down. I queued up a whole bunch of TV shows I wanted to move off of my main M drive using a playlist, then opened the playlist, and then renamed them all in one shot. I do this 2-3 times a year. Every previous time it worked fine, but this last time it acted all weird.