MadCap Software Forums

I'm creating E-Learning content in Flare and running a build for SCORM 2004 output. This is my 62nd E-Learning project and the first to fail. I'm getting a Compile Status of "Build Failed: The given path's format is not supported." message. ID # 10086. File name length is within 255 characters. No special characters in the file name outside of a dash. I've compared it against my E-Learning projects that haven't failed and I can't figure out where the problem is. I've cleaned the project and tried running the build again. Still get the error.

The Builds window shows the build progress with a Red bar. Double-clicking the bar doesn't open the build. However, if I got to the output folder the htm file is there and successfully opens. I can run through the E-Learning course just fine. The problem is that the LMSPackage folder is empty.

Has anyone experienced this? I feel like I'm missing something really obvious.

Somewhere, a file is exceeding 255 characters and so Flare comes to a halt when building. A best practice is to have your Flare projects as close to the C drive as possible, not to mention shortening excessively long filenames and folder names.

Look at the build log for this particular project to narrow down where the too long path is lurking.

To add to my prior reply...

A subcontractor and I hit this issue recently and realized that the file that ended up being too long was in the Temporary folder that Flare builds under the hood during its build process. To prepare to build, Flare gathers up all the files it needs to process and puts a copy of them in the Temporary folder. So although we didn't have any source files in the Content Explorer that seemed to exceed the "path too long" threshold, Flare did hit that threshold in the Temporary folder.

The solution was the same that I've already described above. My subcontractor moved the project on his computer closer to the C drive, and then the build worked.

Thank you! I'll look for long file names and paths.

Does this include Snippet files?

Yes, I’d expect. In my recent experience, we hit the issue with an image being called by a page layout. Well actually that was just the symptom. The cause was a too long target name.

Ok, so super dumb question... How are file names counted? Maybe I'm looking at this wrong? I thought all the characters that appeared in the URL were counted and they had to be less than 255 characters. If that's the case the longest file name I have is 150 characters.

I as mentioned above, Flare might be hitting the limit when it first gathers and COPIES all the source files needed by the target and puts them in the Output\<your name>\Temporary folder. So it's not so much how longyour individual source files' names are. It's what the full path is to them in that Temporary folder.

Have you tried moving your project as close to the C drive as possible? That usually solves the issue.

EDIT: And you have examined the build log to see where Flare hits the threshold? That can help you narrow down the issue, to see where Flare stops.

Thanks for all of your help! As it turns out what was killing the SCORM build was a colon in the Name field of the eLearning tab of the Target. I had entered "Cases: Caseload Assignments" into the field. When I removed the colon the build ran successfully.

Wow, that's some fishing on your part! Glad you got it sorted out.