What is the character limit for SCORM files

[heidirobinson]

Hi - I'm wondering if anyone knows what the character limit is for file names within a SCORM zip folder. I can find out that there is a limit, but nowehere seems to say what the limit is?!

[SEGordon]

Heidi,

The Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) provides detailed and advanced information on SCORM and AICC. It also contains templates, detailed descriptions, technical requirements and downloadable test suits for content. The link for their site is Advanced Distributive Learning Initiative (https://adlnet.gov/). It is a very handy site for any version of SCORM that you may be working with.

[Flynn]

Hi Heidi we are having the exact same problem and are under the 255-character limit as well. Ironically the SCORM file we are uploading was uploaded to the server in 2022 with no problems. It is only recently we have been having this issue. We have a fault logged with SAP but have yet to get an answer.

[Flynn]

Would love to hear if you found what the issue was?

[heidirobinson]

Hi Flynn, I never actually got to the bottom of it in the end. It was a different department in my organisation that came to me with the issue, as the error was focussing on one filename in particular (and this was happening across a few different SCORM files, and when you opened the folder that the files were in, the name was noticeably longer than anything else in there). There were no special character or spaces and when i put the filepath into excel, the count was much less than 255. I advised the team to go back to the vendor that created the content and ask them to reduce the name down or provide me with all the info that SAP will want when creating a ticket, and they didn't come back to me. I guess they sorted it out themselves in the end. I would be interested to find out what SAP say though. It always frustrated me that I didn't get to resolve this one

[ChrisStiles · Accepted solution]

The maximum characters is 255 characters, which includes the launch prefix URL, the path/folder structure on the iContent server, and filename+extension.

[Flynn · Accepted solution]

Hi Chris we are having the same problem and are under the 255-character limit as well(211 caractes). Ironically the SCORM file we are uploading was uploaded to the server in 2022 with no problems. It is only recently that we have been having this issue. We have a fault logged with SAP but have yet to get an answer.

[ChrisStiles · Accepted solution]

flynns - Does your 211 character count include the launch prefix URL for iContent? Most of the launch prefixes use more that 70 characters. Also, is it possible teh issue in your case could be something other than filename length? We recently introduced a new requirement where the zipped scorm package may not contain nested zip files.

[Amin_Omidy]

Hi Heidi,

As far as I recall the SCORM specification does not define a specific limit on the length of file names within a SCORM zip folder. However, the maximum length of a file name that can be used within a SCORM package may be limited by the file system used by the Learning Management System(LMS) that hosts the SCORM package.

Different operating systems and file systems have different limitations on the maximum length of file names, so the actual limit will depend on the specific LMS and file system being used. In general, it is recommended to keep file names as short and descriptive as possible to ensure maximum compatibility within different systems.

To be on the safe side, you can try to limit your file names to 255 characters or less, which is the maximum file name length allowed by many modern file systems nowadays.

Thanks,

[heidirobinson]

Thanks so much for your reply Amin - we are loading an Articulate Rise SCORM training into our SuccessFactors LMS system and it fails due to one file named: 20_R275892_DX1324_DY1324_CX738_CY432.png we aren't sure where the file name is generated but thought that as it was one of the longer names in the zip folder that maybe it exceeded a character limit but it definitely doesn't have 255 characters in it! We will have to have another think on the issue.