File path too long issue

[mlabrum]

I am currently coming across an issue of not being able to save a .pbip file because at least one file path exceeds the 256-character limit. I understand that I can try to rename some things to bring everything to under that limit, but there is only so much that can be done when Microsoft/Power BI appends, in this specific case, 17 characters to an image file included in the report.

Why does Microsoft/Power BI put such a small limit on file path length while simultaneously adding so many characters to an included file name? How can we best work around these limitations?

[Anonymous]

Hi @mlabrum ,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

Unfortunately, this is by design.

When saving as a Power BI Project, the maximum length of the project files path is 260 characters.

For more details, you can read related document: Power BI Desktop projects (PBIP) - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

As a workaround, maybe this similar post can help you:

Solved: [DataFormat.Error] The file name is longer than th... - Microsoft Fabric Community

Best Regards,
Stephen Tao

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[mlabrum]

Hi Stephen,

That is unfortunate, and quite poor design (especially when so many of the limited characters are consumed by further poor design from Microsoft). It looks like the documentation also needs to be updated, since I've seen error messages for the path needing to be no more than 248 characters, and the file being no more than 260 characters, but the most recent error message I encountered put the limit at 256:

Error Message:
[file path] is too long. Maximum allowed path length is 256.

That possible workaround also does not seem relevant as I'm not attempting to read in data files, I'm attempting to save a file.

[mlabrum]

Quick follow-up: I have seen a lot of search results from people complaining about these small path length limitations, and followed enough links to get to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation. Is editing the registry as suggested a viable work-around? Is Power BI "long path aware"?

[TinyMountain]

I have long paths enabled in my registry and still get this issue. It seems like this is a problem with Power BI and / or its dependencies. However, our team was able to buy ourselves some length by creating a virtual drive on our machines that points to the folder where we keep our projects. The command for this is subst DriveLetter: "path\to\project\folder"; eg, subst P: "C:\Users\username\Power BI Projects". In our case, this trimmed off about 60 characters from the file paths, and we were able to open them again by navigating to them through the virtual P drive.