{"id":7443,"date":"2012-06-06T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2012\/06\/06\/dont-be-helpless-what-might-be-the-reason-for-a-path-not-found-error\/"},"modified":"2012-06-06T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T07:00:00","slug":"dont-be-helpless-what-might-be-the-reason-for-a-path-not-found-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20120606-00\/?p=7443","title":{"rendered":"Don't be helpless: What might be the reason for a "Path not found" error?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nInternally at Microsoft, we have a programmer’s tool which I will call\n\nProgram Q<\/a>.\nOn the peer-to-peer mailing list for Program Q,\nsomebody asked the following question:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nWhen I try to do a\nq edit template template_name<\/code>,\ninstead of opening an editor window where I can modify the template,\nI get the following error:\n<\/p>\n

\nError opening for write:\nC:\\Users\\Waldo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\2\\t144t4.tmp\nThe system cannot find the path specified.\n<\/pre>\n
\nCan you help resolve this error?\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nOkay, there is already everything you need in the error message.\nThe program even\n\nconverted the error number to error text for you<\/a>.\nYou just have to read it and think about what it’s telling you.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe file is\nC:\\Users\\Waldo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\2\\t144t4.tmp<\/code>.\nTherefore the path is\nC:\\Users\\Waldo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\2<\/code>.\nI leave you to determine the next step in the investigation.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nThat was apparently not enough of a nudge in the right direction.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nWhile the error message does say “The system cannot find the path\nspecified,”\nthe fact remains that I did not specify a path at all.\nThe path in the error message is completely unknown to me.\nI could try to navigate to that path in Windows Explorer,\nbut I doubt that this has anything to do with resolving the problem.\n<\/p>\n
\nNormally, I get an editor window that lets me edit the template,\nbut instead I get this strange error message which I’ve never\nseen before.\n<\/p>\n
\nI did not try to navigate to the path mentioned in the error message\nsimply because the mentioned Temp folder\nC:\\Users\\Waldo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp<\/code>\nis completely empty!\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nThe helplessness is so thick you can cut it with a knife!\nI also find it astonishing that the person thinks that verifying whether the\npath can be found is totally unrelated to resolving a “Path not found” error.\n<\/p>\n
\nDon’t forget, this is a programmer’s tool.\nOne should assume that the people who use it have some level\nof technical skill!\n<\/p>\n
\nOkay, first we have a “Path not found” error, and there is a\nfully-qualified file name whose path couldn’t be found.\nFirst thing to check is whether the path really exists.\nFrom the most recent reply,\none can see that the answer is “No, it does not exist.”\nThe 2<\/code> subdirectory is missing from the\nTemp<\/code> directory.\n<\/p>\n
\nOkay, so we verified that the error message is valid.\nThe next thing to determine is where the program got this\npath from.\nThe person already recognized that it was the\nTemp<\/code> directory,\nand it shouldn’t be a huge deductive leap to determine that\nthe path probably came from the TEMP<\/code> or\nTMP<\/code> environment variable.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe observation that the Temp<\/code> directory is completely\nempty suggests that the person, in an obsessive-compulsive fit,\ndeleted everything from the Temp<\/code> directory,\nincluding the 2<\/code> subdirectory.\nToo bad that\n\ntheir TEMP<\/code> environment variable\nstill contained a reference to it<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs a result, any program that wants to create a temporary file\nwill try to create it in a directory that doesn’t exist.\nResult:\n“Path not found.”\n<\/p>\n
\nThe fix: Re-create the 2<\/code> subdirectory that you\nmistakenly deleted.\n(And yes, this fixed the problem.)\n<\/p>\n
\nIt somehow seemed completely surprising to this person that\na “Path not found” error could possibly mean that a path couldn’t be found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Internally at Microsoft, we have a programmer’s tool which I will call Program Q. On the peer-to-peer mailing list for Program Q, somebody asked the following question: When I try to do a q edit template template_name, instead of opening an editor window where I can modify the template, I get the following error: Error opening for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-7443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-other"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Internally at Microsoft, we have a programmer’s tool which I will call Program Q. On the peer-to-peer mailing list for Program Q, somebody asked the following question: When I try to do a q edit template template_name, instead of opening an editor window where I can modify the template, I get the following error: Error opening for […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}