Adding binary files to a Fiori app

Published by Tobias Hofmann on September 18, 2025September 18, 2025

5 min read

Deploying a Fiori app to an ABAP system like S/4HANA is simple. Once the deployment configuration for the backend is added, it is just running the deploy command: fiori deploy. For the usual Fiori app this works just fine.

In case you have added a binary file like a font or a plain text file without any suffix to your Fiori app, the deploy will fail. This is intentional. For a file that is using an unknown suffix like .xyz, the upload is blocked. The repository where the Fiori (UI5) files are stored supports a given list of files. Uploading any file to it might not be what you want. This mechanism is preventing you to upload any file to the UI5 repository.

Sometimes you need to upload a custom Fiori app to your ABAP server that includes files that are not supported. Running fiori deploy fails with an error. As an example, let’s add some woff/tff font files or just a simple text file without any suffix like description.

The app runs locally without any problems and can be build. Trying to deploy it via fiori deploy fails. Sample log output:

The deploy fails with status code 400.

Going through the output, the reason why the deploy failed is given.

For sample description file:

Error message:

*** IGNORE *** : <file> (Not uploaded as binary/text type is unknown: Adjust content of files .UI5RepositoryTextFiles and .Ui5RepositoryBinaryFiles)

The reason why the deploy failed is given: file type is not known. The font files are without suffix (.woff, .ttf, just a hash as file name), the first file in the list is with an unknown suffix and the last file is just a text file without a suffix too. Therefore, all these files are unknown to the deploy tool and are rejected.

The error message also contains not only the hint why the deploy failed, but also how to fix it. The hint allows to find a solution on the internet: the UI5 SDK documentation: Using an OData Service to Load Data to the SAPUI5 ABAP Repository (formatting could be better, e.g. provide a header to highlight the section)

The files ‘Ui5RepositoryIgnore’, ‘.Ui5RepositoryTextFiles’ and ‘.Ui5RepositoryBinaryFiles’ can be used to indicate patterns to ignore or add files. To add a file pattern, use .Ui5RepositoryTextFiles for text files and .Ui5RepositoryBinaryFiles for binary files.

Note: The file name is .Ui5RepositoryTextFiles which is different from the file name given in the error log .UI5RepositoryTextFiles: Ui5 vs UI5. The correct one is Ui5RepositoryTextFiles! Ignore what the error output shows you. The file names must be as given in the UI5 SDK documentation: .Ui5Repository…

The .Ui5Repository… files need to be added to the webapp directory, as they must be part of the build app and archive.zip file sent to the SAP system.