git checkout error: unable to create file

Question

While cloning a git repository from Linux to a Windows system, I am getting the following error in checkout the phase:

$ git clone gituser@serveraddr:/git/git_repo.git git_WA
Cloning into 'git_WA'...
gituser@serveraddr's password:
remote: Counting objects: 500846, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (118676/118676), done.
remote: Total 500846 (delta 307739), reused 483023 (delta 291136)
Receiving objects: 100% (500846/500846), 907.54 MiB | 9.04 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (307739/307739), done.

error: unable to create file RealR**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************validation.xml (No such file or directory)
Checking out files: 100% (441329/441329)
Checking out files: 100% (441329/441329), done.
done.

Case-2: Cloned as bare repo, checked-out all from bare repo locally => Same error.

Case-3: Clone the repo in C:\ directly, checkout successful, No error.

-> It looks like problem with filename/filepath length limitation.

Case-4: checkout the same files from SVN repo. Able to checkout at any location without any problem. Hence no problem from windows side. (Yes, l have data in SVN and GIT both, I just migrated from SVN to GIT).

Hence, the problem has to be within msysgit, some filepath length limitation. Can path length in gitclient/msysgit be tweaked?

Edit1: All operation tried with TortoiseGIT client v1.8.0 and git-bash: git version 1.8.0.msysgit.0.
Edit2: Added the actual command used while cloning.

Answer 1

I experienced similar problems when checking out a project into a Windows directory that had a 67- (Windows) or 76- (cygwin) character base path - when added to the path-length of the checked out files, it exceeded Windows' path-length limit:

git checkout -f HEAD
error: unable to create file <194-character filepath> (No such file or directory)
fatal: cannot create directory at '<187-character directory path>': No such file
or directory

I solved the problem by checking out the git repository to c:\git, which, at 6 or 15 characters in length, kept the maximum path-length under the Windows limit.