Done with Actor Framework before I even started...

[X.]

I wanted to whip up a small project so I decided for the fun of it to have a try at the Actor Framework, which seems to have managed to divide the world in two camps: those who get it and those who don't.

Went to Create New Project and selected the Actor Framework template and... waited.

After what felt like a few minutes (and probably was), I got this:

I guess I am not worthy of either camp and just got relegated to the banned peons...

Tested in LV 2015.0f2 64 bits (Windows 7 Pro running on a MacOS X 10.10.5 within Parallel Desktop 9).

[mikeporter]

Consider yourself lucky...

[Lemongrab]

Hey X,

You are receiving a generic error message regarding the Windows limitations for file path length. Windows does not support file paths above 256 characters long. You can certainly place files in folder exceeding that path length but bad things will happen. See this related link for more information:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx

Maybe you have installed LabVIEW in a directory a few folders deep so some of the LabVIEW files exceed this file path? Please install LabVIEW as close to the root directory of your hard drive as possible to avoid this. Using the Program Files >> National Instruments folder is highly recommended. 

[X.]

I have let LV install itself wherever it wished (which is the directory you mention):

However, my typical VI location is in my user folder on the MacOS side of my Parallels Desktop installation. But this has never been an issue so far (and the path to a typical VI folder is way far from 256 characters long).

[altenbach]

I am not sure if I read this error dialog correctly, but it actualy does not seem to say what the name of the offending file actually is. This would be good information to know.

I've run into path limitation when e.g. building executables. It is a windows problem. If the actor framework really generates paths that are exceptionally long, this should be invetstigated, though. Did you get a CAR?

[thoult]

The longest relative path is 64 characters in the final project. So if your base path is nearly 200 characters long I suppose it could be an issue... 🙂

Watching the destination folder as the project wizard executes suggests there are intermediate files, so perhaps one of these is pretty long?

[PaulG.]

I haven't seen this in actor framework but in a standard application. It's usually an openG vi buried in an obscure project folder that was copied when a project was copied and "saved as". I just delete the offending folder and relink the vis to their more traditional locations.

[X.]

Let me clarify: I was just using the create project from template from a fresh boot of Labview 2015 so there should be no special VI, path or whatnot involved other than what's needed for this project template.

I believe this is a NI issue, even if it is related to running Windows on a virtual machine (although I do that all the time with my own projects which I tend to subdivide into folders and subfolders with no such issues so far).

[altenbach]

---

@X. wrote:

Let me clarify: I was just using the create project from template from a fresh boot of Labview 2015 so there should be no special VI, path or whatnot involved other than what's needed for this project template.

---

I agree it should be investigated by NI, especially if it behaves differently in a VM.

However, when creating such a project from template you  have to give a root project name and that entry field is awfully wide. I can see that some users might try to give an extra long name, causing a path explosion.

"My_First_actor_project_trial_to _demonstrate_and_try_the basic_functionality......">\\

Could it be that the VM has additional restrictions on allowed path characters or some other incompatibility that could cause  problems? Could there be some munging of the path names to make it compatible with the host OS?

[X.]

That's a good point. I'll try a different template and check what the result is. But again, I would save the project were I usually have my projects, and those behave just fine.

Could it be that the use of relative paths in the "Create from template" artificially increases the size of the final path? Still, that sounds like an odd limitation in today's computers...