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Unable to determine if a file is on a web server because the various methods of determining the directory do not work

I am developing an application in asp.net, vs2015 using c# and the development environment is a Win10Pro machine. I can use any of the various methods to obtain the working directory and see if a particular file exists on the dev pc, but not on the Web Server. I have tried the methods laid out on:
Get current application physical path within Application_Start
All work on the Dev PC, but when used on the Web Server it will not return the working directory. The Server is a 2016 Data server using IIS10. The issue is that the web site I am putting together work fine, except to display GrapeCity ActiveReports reports AR15. The web page containing their web viewer opens just fine and is looking for a report file (MyReport.rdlx). The global.aspx file is pointing to the root directory but when the web viewer opens up, it says File Not Found. I have absolutely no idea and tech support is not sure. Is this an IIS issue that is preventing the code to locate and verify the file is there? Any direction would be much appreciated. This has been very frustrating and time consuming.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory does not work, HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppPath does not as well as all the others. The request comes back blank.
string filename = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory.ToString() +"SPU01_Dates.rdlx";
if (File.Exists(filename))
{
Response.Write("YES");
}
else
{
Response.Write("NO");
Response.Write("</br");
Response.Write(filename);
}
All this just returns nothing.
Thanks.

Try this code
if (File.Exists(Server.MapPath(filename)))
Check if a file exists on the server

In my test, it returned YES and worked well. Did you put "SPU01_Dates.rdlx" file in root folder？
In the development environment, it returned YES, and when I deployed it to IIS, it returned NO. I found that during the deployment process, the rdlx file was not deployed with the project, so I recreated one in the deployed folder, and it returned YES.
The test proves that AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is the most accurate way to get the file path. When you test this code in IIS, does it return NO or empty? Returning empty means that this piece of code has not been executed.

Can't see path to another server in ASP.NET MVC

I have an internal ASP.NET MVC site that needs to read an Excel file. The file is on a different server from the one that ASP.NET MVC is running on and in order to prevent access problems I'm trying to copy it to the ASP.NET MVC server.
It works OK on my dev machine but when it is deployed to the server it can't see the path.
This is the chopped down code from the model (C#):
string fPath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(#"/virtualdir");
string fName = fPath + "test.xlsm";
if (System.IO.File.Exists(fName))
{
// Copy the file and do what's necessary
}
else
{
if (!Directory.Exists(fPath))
throw new Exception($"Directory not found: {fPath} ");
else
throw new Exception($"File not found: {fName } ");
}
The error I'm getting is
Directory not found:
followed by the path.
The path in the error is correct - I've copied and pasted it into explorer and it resolves OK.
I've tried using the full UNC path, a mapped network drive and a virtual directory (as in the code above). Where required these were given network admin rights (to test only!) but still nothing has worked.
The internal website is using pass through authentication but I've used specific credentials with full admin rights for the virtual directory, and the virtual dir in IIS expands OK to the required folder.
I've also tried giving the application pool (which runs in Integrated mode) full network admin rights.
I'm kind of hoping I've just overlooked something simple and this isn't a 'security feature'.
I found this question copy files between servers asp.net mvc but the answer was to use FTP and I don't want to go down that route if I can avoid it.
Any assistance will be much appreciated.

First, To be on the safe side that your directory is building correctly, I would use the Path.Combine.
string fName = Path.Combine(fPath, "test.xlsm")
Second, I would check the following post and try some things there as it seems to be a similar issue.
Directory.Exists not working for a network path
If you are still not able to see the directory, there is a good chance the user does not have access to that network path. Likely what happened is the app pool running your application has access to the directory on the server. The production box likely doesn't have that same access. You would have to get with the network engineer to get that resolved.
Alternatively, you could write a Powershell script to run as a user who has access to both the production and the development server to copy the file over to the production server if that is your ultimate goal and your server administrators could schedule it for you if that is allowed in your environment.

Accessing Files from UNC Network Path in C# Application

I have a desktop application in which the user is able to specify the input and output directories.Things work fine for local directories;but people have started complaining about network locations accessed using UNC Naming Conventions.
If the user pastes the UNC Path,the code checks if the Directory exists using the following method
if(Directory.Exists(selecteddir)
{
// all good
}
This method returns false for some network locations situated on other machines.I have tested using default local machine UNC Path \\?\C:\my_dir and the code works fine.
The application runs with administrative rights .
Im new to accessing network locations in C# Code.Is there any specific way to do this? If the user has already performed windows based authentication for the UNC Shares,wont these shares be accessible by the c# application?
Please advice on how to go forward.
Update:
I have also tried using directory info
DirectoryInfo info1 = new DirectoryInfo(#textbox.Text);
if (info1.Exists)
{
return true;
}

I have faced this situation many times. In the end, I believe that there is some issue with Directory.Exist method and I leave it.
Now, I am using DirectoryInfo class to check that like this.
DirectoryInfo info = new DirectoryInfo(#"Your Path");
if (info.Exists)
{
}
It is working fine for now. So there are other reasons too but it works for me. And of course, it does not resolve the impersonation issue.

Server Root and MapPath()

I have a file structure set up like this:
ServerRoot
applicationRoot
filePage.aspx
files
chart.png
My application page called filePage.aspx uses another app to custom build charts. I need them saved in files folder. This is how our client's production server is set up and I cannot change this.
I do a _page.Server.MapPath("/files") but it gives me a InvalidOperationException and states Failed to map the path '/files'.
UPDATE:
So it has to be set up this way MapPath("/"). My local asp.net server can't handle the MapPath that way, but our IIS development box has no problem with it and it works fine. Interesting.
How do I get it to save to files?

I believe it's a security violation to go outside the directory structure of the virtual directory in asp.net 2.0 and up. You'll need to make a virtual directory to the directory and use that.

Use
Server.MapPath("~/files")
The ~ represents the root of the web application so the folder returned will be correct no matter which subdirectory you are in.

Try
_page.Server.MapPath("files")

_page.Server.MapPath() will attempt to map from the root of the application (NOT the root of the server).
Try _page.Server.MapPath("../files").
EDIT
You may run into security issues when trying to map outside of your application root. If that is the case, you can do something like this:
Server.MapPath("~").Substring(0, Server.MapPath("~").IndexOf(VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~").Replace("/", "\"))) + "\files"
This looks rather complex, but essentially says "map my application, then remove the application root from the end and add '\files' instead".

Access to the path is denied

I'm trying to use a ASP.NET(C#) application on a IIS-Server. Everything is working great, i have only one problem. I'm trying to create a CSV-File in the 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\bin' directory, but i get the errormessage "Access to the path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\bin' is denied.".
I tried to give the 'IUSR' and the 'NT-AUTHORITY/networkservice' all rights, but it still doesn't work. I also tried it in an other directory but also doesn't work.
OS: Windows Server 2008 R2
Thanks in advance!
Edit: Thx! Works now.

use the App_Data folder for that, NOT the bin folder:
more here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t990ks23.aspx
and: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ex526337.aspx

Try adding the rights to the ASPNET user, that might be the issue.
Also, writing a file at the root of the web-folder, is basically a bad idea.
It's much safer if you put create the files in a folder that is not accessible from the web, and than use a separate page to download the file (I'm guessing that's what you are trying to accomplish), something along these lines.