Long File Name mp3's on hard drive.

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odellkevin
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Long File Name mp3's on hard drive.

Post by odellkevin »

I'm getting ready to put a 2TB drive in my softmodded 1.6. I want to copy my mp3 collection over, (about 30,000 files). Is there any way to copy them over without the system shortening the filenames? My plan is to keep stock size for C and E, and split the remainder on F and G (about 900 and something GB each), and put games and emulators on F and music, movies, pics on G. But some of my mp3s and movies have file names longer than 42. Any ideas?
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Rocky5
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Re: Long File Name mp3's on hard drive.

Post by Rocky5 »

odellkevin wrote: Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:42 pm I'm getting ready to put a 2TB drive in my softmodded 1.6. I want to copy my mp3 collection over, (about 30,000 files). Is there any way to copy them over without the system shortening the filenames? My plan is to keep stock size for C and E, and split the remainder on F and G (about 900 and something GB each), and put games and emulators on F and music, movies, pics on G. But some of my mp3s and movies have file names longer than 42. Any ideas?
No the max character length on a FatX file system is 42 characters long.
( that includes the extension )
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sixties keith
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Re: Long File Name mp3's on hard drive.

Post by sixties keith »

I didnt know there was an automatic file renaming, how is this done? when i tried to copy stuff over (mainly music with long file names( it simply failed to transfer unless i manually edited the filename.
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odellkevin
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Re: Long File Name mp3's on hard drive.

Post by odellkevin »

Go to System>Network>Services and there should be an option for Auto FATX limiter. If that is turned off, any attempt to ftp a file longer than 42 characters will fail. Turn it on and the file will copy with an automatically shortened file name. I "believe" that's how it works.
Also, there IS a way to use long file names on the xbox, but it's not very elegant. Put your files/folders in a zip file (store, not compressed), name the zip file anything shorter than 42 characters and ftp it over. The xbox OS will read the files/folders inside the zip file, (along with artwork, metadata, etc), but will not touch the names. There are no limits (afaik) inside the zip file (any file/folder name length and any number of files/folders). For example, I've created a single zip file with 20,000 milkdrop presets, with many that had over 120 character filenames, and they all copied over and functioned correctly, (although milkdrop took several seconds to read that file). The only fatx "limitation" that I know of when doing this, is that the zip file can't be over 4gb. That's why I said it's not very elegant, because you would have to split your media files (movies, music, pics) into no more than 4gb zip files.
For example, say you have a folder on your computer called "Beatles", and inside that folder you have 20 sub folders of different Beatles albums, and inside those you have the mp3s. You would open the Beatles folder, select all 20 sub folders, then right click>7-Zip>Add to archive...(ensure compression level is set to "store") click "OK", and a file called Beatles.zip will be created inside your Beatles folder. Ftp that Beatles.zip file to your xbox, we'll say into F:\Music (or wherever you want). Then from your xbox home screen, go Music>(press white button)>add source>then navigate to the F:\Music folder (it will be empty, as zip files won't show up)>OK. Then back at your home screen, select Music and it should show a screen with Music Plugins (if you have any installed) and Music (which is the source you just added), select Music and it should show a file called Beatles.zip, select that file and it should open up displaying all 20 folders/albums, open any of them and it should show all of your mp3's (with their full file names)with the correct artwork (assuming your id3 tags are correct and you have System>Music>File lists>Enable tag reading enabled). You can even select the Music source that you added and go white button>scan to library and it will scan the contents of the zip file(s) into your library. And just repeat this over and over with as many folders of mp3's as you like. The important thing is not to zip up the main folder, only the contents. Whether it's sub folders of albums or just a bunch of mp3 files, select all>right click>7-Zip>Add to archive...compression level: store>OK. And a zip file should be created with the name of the folder you are in, not necessarily the name of the files/folders you selected (if you only select one file or folder, it will name the zip file the same as that file or folder, if you select multiple files/folders, it will name the zip the same as the folder you are in). Ftp the file Beatles.zip, Led Zeppelin.zip, Britney Spears.zip, whatever, to your xbox Music folder and they should all show up and work correctly. You can also copy the files over using the xbox built in file manager as long as your computer (where you keep your mp3s) is added as a source in the xbox file manager, that way you don't have to go to your computer and run an ftp program. Note: this assumes you are using Windows and have 7-Zip installed with shell context menus enabled, if your are on Mac, Linux, etc, you gotta figure it out yourself. Also, I am using XBMC 3.5.3 with Confluence Light, if you're using a different version/skin....who knows.
Whew! That was longer than I meant for it to be. I just tried to dumb it down, not for Rocky or Keith, but for new guys that may have the same question.
Also, I know this may seem like a PITA to do, but..it also turns your xbox into a backup for your mp3 collection. If your hard drive on your main computer fails and takes your mp3 collection with it, you simply install a new hard drive and then copy all of your mp3 zip files off of your xbox and unzip them and you have your collection back. Also remember to delete the zip file off of your main computer after you have copied it to the xbox, because being a "store" zip, it is the same size as the original mp3 folder and can fill your hard drive up quickly.
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Re: Long File Name mp3's on hard drive.

Post by Koitsu »

sixties keith wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:40 am I didnt know there was an automatic file renaming, how is this done? when i tried to copy stuff over (mainly music with long file names( it simply failed to transfer unless i manually edited the filename.
You probably weren't using XBMC at the time. Certain other dashboards like Evox won't do this for you, but XBMC will. You might not notice it's doing it, though, which might cause other problems down the line. Zipped files like GBA games come to mind. The zip filename might be shortened, but the actual file in the zip won't be, etc.
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