OsX "Path Invalid on Windows" Seafile Client Sync Error. How to Fix?

Hi all:

I’ve been using Seafile successfully and without any problems for approx. 2 years, basically to sync documents and other data across 3 MacOS devices an iPhone and iPad.

Now I’ve added a Windows computer into the mix, and was hoping for seamless integration but that’s not the case.

When trying to sync all of my important libraries on the Windows computer, I get the following errors for a number of my files:

excerpt from /ccnet/logs/seafile

[08/17/17 13:56:06] repo-mgr.c(5241): Path Stationary /Envelope /Only Letterhead Logo (new).tiff is invalid on Windows, skip checkout
[08/17/17 13:56:06] repo-mgr.c(5241): Path Stationary /Envelope /Only Letterhead Logo (new).pdf is invalid on Windows, skip checkout
[08/17/17 13:56:06] repo-mgr.c(5241): Path Stationary /Envelope /Only Letterhead Logo (new).docx is invalid on Windows, skip checkout
[08/17/17 13:56:06] repo-mgr.c(5241): Path Stationary /Envelope /Envelope11.docx is invalid on Windows, skip checkout
[08/17/17 13:56:06] repo-mgr.c(5241): Path Stationary /Envelope /Envelope Logo .pdf is invalid on Windows, skip checkout
[08/17/17 13:56:06] repo-mgr.c(5241): Path Stationary /Envelope /Envelope Logo .jpg is invalid on Windows, skip checkout

The list gets much more extensive, this is just a small sample.

I understand that the issue is with supported character and spacing in paths and directories on MacOS viz-a-viz Windows. Frankly I don’t know why there are so many files and dirs. that have an extra space in them on my MacOS devices… certainly wasn’t done intentionally.

My question is this: What is the best way to resolve this issue? I was going to try running some stuff on my MacOS devices through a program called “A Better Finder Rename 10” which supposedly would fix the issues, although I don’t think it deals with whitespace in directory names and only would fix filenames. Plus, when I ran a small sample of my data that I know didn’t sync correctly with Seafile, it tells me that “0 of X items need renaming” – not the solution I’m in need of.

My understanding also is that this issue is not with NTFS but with Windows itself, so even if I store my seafile data on a different partition type, this won’t help – if that’s incorrect please let me know.

Has anybody dealt with this issue successfully? What did you do?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated, thank you.

Any takers? I’m losing sleep

This site outlines which characters are allowed an which not. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx

You basically need some software removing all disallowed characters and everything will be fine.

I don’t have a Mac, but something like https://manytricks.com/namemangler/ could be of help. The console can also be helpful (see e.g. http://www.peteryu.ca/tutorials/shellscripting/batch_rename).