Browser-based errors while uploading folders on Windows

The Windows API imposes a few restrictions on web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Because of this, there are a few things to keep in mind when uploading files to your cases.

Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox

• Files with path names longer than 260 characters (including their path directory) can cause issues; their names get truncated and often result in errored, zero-byte files
• Uploading deeply-nested directory structures can potentially corrupt user data. Hence uploading of entire folders from both platforms has been disabled

Unfortunately, these interactions are beyond the control of GoldFynch, but luckily there are a number of simple ways to work around the issue.

To work around the issue of long file names

• Use Microsoft Edge for uploads - for the general use of the service, we recommend using Google Chrome, but when you specifically need to upload files with long file names, use Microsoft Edge as it has no trouble uploading very long or deeply-nested files
• Zip the files beforehand using a shorter name and upload the zipped file instead of individual files. It's worth noting that some zipping programs do their own filename shortening, so it is still recommended to move files to a lower-level directory before zipping the files (so that the names inside the zip file will be shorter)
• Rename the files or relocate them from the directory you originally uploaded them from to one in which the overall path name is reduced in length.

(E.g.: move a file with a 200-character-long name in C:\Users\Admin\Documents\Scanned Documents\June 2018 Scans\Cullen Report (72 characters, 272 total) to C:\Users\Admin\Documents\Cullen Report (38 characters, 238 in total)

To zip files, select all the files and folders you wish to zip on your computer, then:

• On Windows: Right-click, choose "Send to", then choose 'Zip'
• On Mac: Right-click and select 'Compress'

To upload folders:

• Zipping your files before uploading them (instructions on how to do so are above) is the best way to upload folders. GoldFynch will automatically extract the zip files when they are uploaded to your case, and this will also preserve the folder structure if there are any sub-folders
• Additionally, Microsoft Edge features an 'Upload a Directory' button that lets you directly upload folders

Things to note

• On Mac operating systems, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari all have both ‘Upload Files’ and ‘Upload a Directory’ buttons
• We recommend using Google Chrome (or if not, Mozilla Firefox) while using GoldFynch on Windows (and following the workarounds listed above where conflicts occur during upload) as some of the other features are not supported by Edge
• Make sure that you don't move, rename or delete any of the files or folders on your system while the upload is taking place as it will cause the upload to error out
• Regardless of the browser used, though we do not recommend doing so, after the zip file is successfully extracted you may want to delete the container file as it will no longer be needed by GoldFynch. Learn how to here.