Yearly Archives: 2020

Git checkouts fail on Windows with “Filename too long error: unable to create file”

Cause

According to the msysgit wiki on GitHub and the related fix this error, Filename too long, comes from a Windows API limitation of file paths having 260 characters or fewer.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, run the following command from GitBash or the Git CMD prompt (as administrator):

git config --system core.longpaths true

This will allow file paths of 4096 characters.