[84370] Long filenames in the import process crash the simulator

I've been looking into the issue here today.

Good news: It will stop crashing in the next update.

Bad news: It will still fail to import (albeit with a proper error message in the console).

Good news: When the DX11 update goes live for everybody and you switch back to the default branch in Steam, it will be less likely to happen.

Bad news: A sufficiently long vehicle name, texture name, Windows username, probably colorscheme name, or combination of those things will still prevent a model from importing.

This is actually not a new problem, but the longer <Documents> pathname for the DX11 beta ("RealFlight Evolution DX11 Beta" vs. "RealFlight Evolution") makes it more likely to occur. And the particular heli models you linked contain some longer names, which is why they provoke the issue when most other models don't.

We definitely want to improve this. A proper solution is going to be much more involved, though, especially because we want to preserve backward compatibility for all the older models (both stock and custom!).

In the meantime, as I said, I was at least able to make it handle the situation more gracefully. And you can take some solace in the fact that when DX11 goes out for everybody it will once again be less of a problem.

Thanks for the report, @asj5547!
 
Thanks for investigating and replying.
Question, what is the maximum length file name we can use?
 
It's a little complicated because the limit applies to the entire string which is constructed of several parts. One of those could be longer if another was shorter, for example.

I believe the total length is 143 characters--maybe 144, but I suppressed my own curiosity and didn't spend any extra time investigating that little detail once I understood the general problem.

So, for me personally, this comes in juuuuuust under the limit in Evo (at 142 characters):

C:\Users\Ryan Douglas\Documents\RealFlight Evolution\Vehicles\CustomModels\Gronimod - SAB GOBLIN 500\Gronimod - SAB GOBLIN 500 - Red-White.tga

But it goes over in the DX11 beta:

C:\Users\Ryan Douglas\Documents\RealFlight Evolution DX11 Beta\Vehicles\CustomModels\Gronimod - SAB GOBLIN 500\Gronimod - SAB GOBLIN 500 - Red-White.tga
 
New update version 10.00.072 includes the change I described above--namely, the sim should no longer crash in this situation but should instead fail with an appropriate console error message.

A longer-term goal remains to improve this situation so that custom vehicles like these will import successfully.
 
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