PATH_MAX still an issue despite Windows setting allowing longer paths

[sda030]

Rendering Quarto chunks errors if path is too long, (but confusingly enough not an issue when rendering the entire document using the Render-button or through the quarto-package). I have already set Windows 11 to allow extended filepaths. After some digging it seem that fs is clinging to old MAX_PATH/PATH_MAX behaviour, even though libuv removed this limit in 2020.

fs::path("C:/Users/username/NIFU/21206 Utdanningsdirektoratets spørringer - General/V2023/Rapport/saros/Kap-Behov omkring kvalitetssikring/Behov-omkring-kvalitetsutvikling_cache/html/fig-html_bi_catcat_freq_plot_html_Bruker_skolen_bestemte_analyseverktøy_i_arbeidet_med_å_analysere_og_tolke_resultater__BY_fylke_gs_596_bec41d4ecbe948e793244e4d3177642d.rdb")
#> Error in path_tidy(.Call(fs_path_, lapply(args, function(x) enc2utf8(as.character(x))), : Total path length must be less than PATH_MAX: 260

^{Created on 2023-05-08 with reprex v2.0.2}

Session info

sessioninfo::session_info()
#> ─ Session info ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  setting  value
#>  version  R version 4.3.0 (2023-04-21 ucrt)
#>  os       Windows 11 x64 (build 22621)
#>  system   x86_64, mingw32
#>  ui       RTerm
#>  language (EN)
#>  collate  nb.utf8
#>  ctype    nb.utf8
#>  tz       Europe/Oslo
#>  date     2023-05-08
#>  pandoc   2.19.2 @ C:/Program Files/RStudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/bin/tools/ (via rmarkdown)
#> 
#> ─ Packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  package     * version date (UTC) lib source
#>  cli           3.6.1   2023-03-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  digest        0.6.31  2022-12-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  evaluate      0.21    2023-05-05 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.0)
#>  fastmap       1.1.1   2023-02-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  fs            1.6.2   2023-04-25 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.0)
#>  glue          1.6.2   2022-02-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  htmltools     0.5.5   2023-03-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  knitr         1.42    2023-01-25 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  lifecycle     1.0.3   2022-10-07 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  magrittr      2.0.3   2022-03-30 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  purrr         1.0.1   2023-01-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  R.cache       0.16.0  2022-07-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  R.methodsS3   1.8.2   2022-06-13 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.2)
#>  R.oo          1.25.0  2022-06-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.2)
#>  R.utils       2.12.2  2022-11-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  reprex        2.0.2   2022-08-17 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  rlang         1.1.1   2023-04-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.0)
#>  rmarkdown     2.21    2023-03-26 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  rstudioapi    0.14    2022-08-22 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  sessioninfo   1.2.2   2021-12-06 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  styler        1.9.1   2023-03-04 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  vctrs         0.6.2   2023-04-19 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  withr         2.5.0   2022-03-03 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  xfun          0.39    2023-04-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#>  yaml          2.3.7   2023-01-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.2.3)
#> 
#>  [1] C:/Users/py128/AppData/Local/R/win-library
#>  [2] C:/Program Files/R/R-4.3.0/library
#> 
#> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

P.S. Trying to roll out Quarto to my organization coming weeks and months and there is no alternative with shorter (relative) paths, so would be superbly happy for a fix soon.

[Arthfael]

Similar problem here: I have long paths enabled in Windows but get:

> fs::dir_copy(wd, outdir, overwrite = FALSE)
Error in path_tidy(.Call(fs_path_, lapply(args, function(x) enc2utf8(as.character(x))),  : 
  Total path length must be less than PATH_MAX: 260

I am not sure as to even why I get the problem, because my longest paths seem to be shorter than PATH_MAX:

> a <- list.files(wd, full.names = TRUE, recursive = TRUE)
> b <- gsub(topattern(wd), outdir, a) # (topattern = homebrew function to convert a string to a regex pattern)
> max(nchar(a))
[1] 252
> max(nchar(b))
[1] 237

R version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows Server 2022 x64 (build 20348)

[lgaborini]

This is still an issue for me: OP code fails with the same error.
I'm rendering a Quarto report inside a {targets}/{tarchetypes} pipeline, and I get a similar error.

fs 2.0.1
R version 4.5.3 (2026-03-11 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64
Running under: Windows 11 x64 (build 22631)