Files automatically renaming themselves to things like FULLM~20.MKV

[CharlesNguyen]

I've been having this problem for a while now on my iMac (OSX 10.6.3) where a file would just rename itself into something like "FULLM~20.MKV" after I rename a different file within the same folder.
It's occurred in several folders and is really annoying because I don't know what the original filenames are and messes up my organization.
I took note of some occurrences below. If I recall correctly, trying to fix the messed up filename sometimes works but it eventually gets messed up again. It's not limited to video files only, I've seen it happen to a jpg at least once.

Renaming
"✘ Hetalia Axis Powers 33v2 [Webcast].mkv"
to
"✘ Hetalia Axis Powers 33 [Webcast].mkv"
automatically renames
"✘ Hetalia Axis Powers 37 [Webcast].mkv"
to
"_HETA~34.MKV"


Renaming
"_HETA~34.MKV"
to
"✘ Hetalia Axis Powers 37 [Webcast].mkv"
fails with error message
"The name “✘ Hetalia Axis Powers 37 [Webcast].mkv” is already taken. Please choose a different name."


Renaming
"FULLM~20.MKV"
to
"Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 20.mkv"
fails with error message
"The name “Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 20.mkv” is already taken. Please choose a different name."
Everything changed back to normal after renaming a few other files within the same folder


Renaming
"Oha Suta 20100331 [+, Koharu Kusumi].mp4"
to
"[+] Oha Suta 20100331 [Koharu Kusumi].mp4"
automatically renames
"Oha Suta 20090526 [Koharu Kusumi].mp4"
to
"OHASU~16.MP4"
I undid that and added another file into the folder called "Ogawa Saki - Oha Star 100521.mp4" and renamed it to "✘ Oha Suta 20100521 [Saki Ogawa].mp4". Doing the same renaming thing above then worked fine.



The weirdly named files work fine though.

 

[robbieduncan]

Is this happening on an HFS+ drive? Or a FAT formatted drive?

 

[CharlesNguyen]

FAT external drive (I am planning on formatting to HFS in the near future though in order to store 4GB+ files)

 

[robbieduncan]

FAT external drive

Then that's your problem: it's an ancient format that only really supports short file names. There is a hack that MS implemented on top (and then everyone else who reads/writes FAT) to enable the illusion of long file names. For some reason you are seeing the real file names instead of the illusion.

 

[CharlesNguyen]

Thanks!
I guess more reason to go with HFS+

 

[kopo]

i have the same thing but on my macbook harddrive. any ideas?

 

[daze]

Only solution is to choose a different file format that truly supports long filenames without hackery... Which is HFS+ and many other Linux based file systems, but since you're on a Mac, HFS+ is the native way to go.