When you're trying to add a document or adding photos and you encounter upload failures that seem to come out of nowhere, most of these issues trace back to a single, often-overlooked culprit: your file name.

Think of your file name as the first security checkpoint. Before your system even considers the file size, permissions, or device compatibility, it evaluates whether the name itself meets basic requirements. If it doesn't, the upload stops right there, regardless of everything else being perfect.

File names must follow specific character limitations. This isn't arbitrary - it's a technical requirement that ensures compatibility across different systems and devices.

Here's what your image file name can contain:

• Letters (A-Z, a-z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Spaces
• Hyphens (-)
• Underscores (_)

And here's the critical limit: your file name cannot exceed 64 characters total. This character count includes the file extension (like .jpg or .png), so a name like "incident_report_from_warehouse_section_b_after_equipment_malfunction_2024.jpg" would exceed the limit and fail to upload.

Characters to avoid include special symbols like @, #, $, %, &, *, (, ), !, ?, <, >, /, \, and others. Even a single asterisk or forward slash will trigger an upload failure. The system rejects these because they have special meaning in file systems and could create conflicts or security vulnerabilities.