Path may not contain the following characters: &

Development Character & Animation
, , ,
1

I just installed UE4 4.73 for the first time and when I launch the editor and choose a blank project and go to name it something (tried even just one letter) I get this error:

“Path may not contain the following characters: &”

Because of this alert the create project button is greyed out and I can’t start a project.

2

Hello FartSmesh,

Thank you for you post. I am looking into your issue and I am having some difficulty replicating the issue. I have a few questions to ask if you don’t mind in order to be more helpful.

  1. I noticed that you said that the version of the engine that you are using is 4.73. The latest version of the engine that has been released to the public is
  2. Is this PC or Mac?
  3. Did you have a previously installed version of the editor? Or is this the first copy that you have installed?

Once we have this information we can check to see if it is a problem that other users are experiencing, If it is not, and it turns out to be a bug I will right up a report for you and submit it to the developers. Hopefully we will be able to get this problem worked out and have you up and running soon.

Thanks,

3

Thanks for your response.

Sorry, the version is 4.7.2 (my mistake).

This is the PC version.

No I don’t have a previous version installed. This is the first copy.

4

Does your pc account name have an & in it? Like “John & Jane” or something like that?

5

Actually, yes it does have and ‘&’ symbol in my pc account name. What does that mean?

6

Unreal does not support generation of projects in folders with an & character in it. By default it puts projects in your My Documents\Unreal Projects folder, however this folder is located in a folder named your Windows account name. If your account name has a & symbol in it, you must not use your My Documents folder.

Change your project folder location to somewhere outside of your My Documents folder as that folder is within a folder named your account name, and the & symbol is breaking it. Use something like C:\MyUnrealProjects