Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Mathieu Bengle — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 21:10:23 GMT

@Kevin van Hareen , when I ran this pointing to my Onedrive path I get all files! So why it doesn't import all with Import-PWDocuments?

Get-ChildItem -Path $SourceFolderPath -Recurse | Get-FileHash -Algorithm MD5

As a workaround, I was thinking to go like this ;

1- Copy-Item to local drive
2- Rename-Item
3- Import-PWDocuments
4- Delete Copied Items from local drive

I would like to reduce folder and file names but every test i did with Rename-Item + Substring failed...

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Mathieu Bengle — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 20:52:16 GMT

Even with this option enabled it only imports file from the parent folder and subfolders but files into subfolders are missing.

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 19:32:28 GMT

Oh I ran into this with ProjectWise Drive and came up with this powershell. Just tested it with my OneDrive and it seems to be working properly.

Get-ChildItem -Path "$($ENV:OneDrive)" -Recurse | Get-FileHash -Algorithm MD5

This lets me just do the files in the specified path, instead of all of them, and it isn't permanent.

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Adrian Crowfoot — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 19:14:26 GMT

Mathieu,

Remember that OneDrive files are not downloaded until needed. You may need to enable the Always keep on this device option. I suspect there might be a OneDrive PS module as well to automate this piece.

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:20:42 GMT

nice. i experimented a bit, drives created with subst will show up with Get-PSDrive (immediately, don't need to relaunch ps). Using new-psdrive to create a mapping to the local system won't show up in subst (with a relaunch of cmd or not). -persist -scope Global will cause the drive to show up in the cmd window using net use, but not subst (you can only use persist with a UNC, no mappings to local drives allowed)

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Dan Williams — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 08:17:26 GMT

Mathieu Bengle,

If you are asking what the maximum length of a folder name can be in ProjectWise, the answer is 63, and no, there isn't a way to force a folder to have a longer name.

However, the folder's' description can be a maximum of 127 characters. You could come up with a naming scheme to shorten the folder's name to fix and to be unique, but then use the "real" name as the folder's description. This way you could then enable the user setting to use descriptions instead of names.

As for why the files are not imported when you use the Import-PWDocuments Cmdlet with Onedrive mapped to a drive letter? Not sure, but the underlying code for Import-PWDocuments looks like it uses FindFirstFile and the underlying code might not account for network shares as I see some comments in Microsoft's documentation about some limitations when trying to find files on network shares.

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Mathieu Bengle — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 03:57:39 GMT

It seems that the folder name has too many characters because all other folders with the same path have been created. If I add this folder directly in PW explorer, I also get error for folder name too long. Is there a way to force this?

Also, do you have any idea why the files are not imported when I use the Import-PWDocuments cmdlet with a drive like Onedrive mapped to X as the input folder :?

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Dan Williams — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 23:44:13 GMT

Thanks Kevin van Haaren! I haven't used that command in years, but I do remember using it in the past.

FWIW, I got curious if there was a way to do this in PowerShell, and there is. If you are interested, check out this Cmdlet:

New-PSDrive

I didn't test this out to see if it works with ProjectWise, but I did notice the note in the documentation about the setting the "Scope" parameter value to "Global" to make the drive persist out of the current scope. Not sure if that means it would persist outside of PowerShell or not.

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Kevin van Haaren — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 22:12:06 GMT

There is another trick you can use here as well. This works if the really long path is on a mapped network drive or on your c: drive too.

The command line program subst allows you to substitute a drive letter for any path.

> subst x: j:\dir1\dir2\dir3\dir4

> subst /?
Associates a path with a drive letter.

SUBST [drive1: [drive2:]path]
SUBST drive1: /D

  drive1:        Specifies a virtual drive to which you want to assign a path.
  [drive2:]path  Specifies a physical drive and path you want to assign to
                 a virtual drive.
  /D             Deletes a substituted (virtual) drive.

Type SUBST with no parameters to display a list of current virtual drives.

Running the first command in that, subst x: J:\dir1\dir2\dir3\dir4 allows you to use the shortcut x: for all those paths.

you can used subst x: /d to delete it when done

just running subst with no options will display any currently substituted drives.

RE: Import-PWDocuments issues with drive as InputFolder and long path

Dan Williams — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 21:27:43 GMT

I won't address your specifics, but when I have run into similar "long paths" issues in the past for various import operations (not all for ProjectWise), one "trick" that I learned from a colleague years ago was to create a share far enough down the path for the source that "works" and mount that share as a drive. Of course if the paths are still too long then you might have to look for an alternative method.

So you could try creating a share for perhaps a folder "down the tree" like the "GROUPNAME" folder, and then mount that share as drive X:. Then you should be able to import from drive X: at the location in your datasource that matches up with what you intend the full path to be.

HTHs