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OpenWrite UnauthorizedAccessException

I am working on a desktop application that internally creates a StringBuilder that errors get appended to and ultimately gets written to a txt file.
I get an exception that says 'Access to the path 'C:\Users\Me\Documents\test_dir\5_hundred_thousand_rows_Logs.txt' is denied.'
Below is the code that performs the creation of the .txt file. The exception catches on the File.OpenWrite(tempfile)) line
string tempfile="C:\\Users\\Me\\Documents\\test_dir\\5_hundred_thousand_rows_Logs.txt";
using (Stream fileStream = File.OpenWrite(tempfile))//exception here
{
string data = logFileContent.ToString();
Byte[] filecontent = new UTF8Encoding(true).GetBytes(data);
fileStream.Write(filecontent, 0, filecontent.Length);
}
Process.Start(tempfile);
I have double checked and the tempfile does indeed have the file extension and is not attempting to create a directory.
I've tried wrapping the using statement with the following to attempt to "grant" access but to no avail:
var permissionSet = new PermissionSet(PermissionState.None);
var writePermission = new FileIOPermission(FileIOPermissionAccess.AllAccess, Path.GetDirectoryName(tempfile));
writePermission.Demand();
permissionSet.AddPermission(writePermission);
FileAttributes attributes = File.GetAttributes(Path.GetDirectoryName(tempfile));
if (permissionSet.IsSubsetOf(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.PermissionSet))
{
// using statement
}
I am wanting this desktop application to be able to be handed to anyone and they be able to use this without having the user deal with folder permissions or something. Granted I'm really only expecting it to try to access MyDownloads, MyDocuments, directories on flash drives or other similar devices.
I would greatly appreciate any help provided.
EDIT:
It appears that this may be a Windows issue. The file is set to readonly in its properties (was not this way originally), and attempting to set the file as not readonly doesn't work as Windows apparently just resets it back to readonly. However if the file is not in a folder and is just sitting on the bare drive (such as a different drive eg: D:/5_hundred_thousand_rows_Logs.txt) it seems to work just fine. If there's a programmatic way to get around this I would appreciate it, but if this is a Windows issue this may require making this a different question.

According to the documentation the exception is thrown when you don't have the permissions, or the file is readonly.
To test if you don't have permissions, try and run your application as administrator. To verify the second case, right click the file in explorer, choose properties, and make sure it's not readonly.
Besides that string tempfile="C:\\Users\\Me\\Documents\\test_dir\\5_hundred_thousand_rows_Logs.txt"; is a weird path, because it's using the user me which definitelly doesn't exist on every machine. If you like to get the documents folder of the current user you can use: Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments); This will create the correct path for you.

cannot open the file because the open options are incorrect

Im using photoshop library in C# application.
public static ps.ApplicationClass app
createPreviewThumbnail(filepath);//looks like "http://192.26.1.105/Connect/testjob/test.PSD"
public static void createPreviewThumbnail(string sourcePath)
{
app = new ps.ApplicationClass();
Photoshop.Document doc = app.Open(sourcePath, null, null);
......
}
This code works fine but some times I get this Exception that cannot open the file because the open options are incorrect What may be the reasons for this?

The problem may be in the filepath.
I've had this error message twice on a piece of code I've been working on recently. The first time, the error was due to two different kinds of files in the directory path. The code would only work if there were no other files in the directory.
After I solved that problem, the same error message came up. I tried changing the file path, but it didn't work. However, when I changed the filepath back to what I had originally, it worked. I may have had a typo or error before and didn't know it.
Hope that helps anyone getting the same error message.

I ran into this issue when trying to open a file that was in my Dropbox folder.
Since Dropbox has "online only" files that are really just a pointer to a file that will download when clicked on, my Photoshop could not open these file while Dropbox was turned off . Turning it on fixed this error message
To readers of this issue:
This indicates if the path is correct, is there some other issue with the file pointers? Is the file locked? that sort of thing.

Access to the path denied error in C#

I have read a similar post, but i just cant figure out the problem.
I have changed the windows permissions and changed routes.
When i try to save a file it throws me the exception:
Access to the path **** denied.
string route="D:\\";
FileStream fs = new FileStream(route, FileMode.Create); <--here is the problem
StreamWriter write = new StreamWriter(fs);
patient person = new patient();
patient.name = textBox1.Text;
patient.name2 = textBox2.Text;

You are trying to create a FileStream object for a directory (folder). Specify a file name (e.g. #"D:\test.txt") and the error will go away.
By the way, I would suggest that you use the StreamWriter constructor that takes an Encoding as its second parameter, because otherwise you might be in for an unpleasant surprise when trying to read the saved file later (using StreamReader).

Did you try specifing some file name?
eg:
string route="D:\\somefilename.txt";

tl;dr version: Make sure you are not trying to open a file marked in the file system as Read-Only in Read/Write mode.
I have come across this error in my travels trying to read in an XML file.
I have found that in some circumstances (detailed below) this error would be generated for a file even though the path and file name are correct.
File details:
The path and file name are valid, the file exists
Both the service account and the logged in user have Full Control permissions to the file and the full path
The file is marked as Read-Only
It is running on Windows Server 2008 R2
The path to the file was using local drive letters, not UNC path
When trying to read the file programmatically, the following behavior was observed while running the exact same code:
When running as the logged in user, the file is read with no error
When running as the service account, trying to read the file generates the Access Is Denied error with no details
In order to fix this, I had to change the method call from the default (Opening as RW) to opening the file as RO. Once I made that one change, it stopped throwing an error.

I had this issue for longer than I would like to admit.
I simply just needed to run VS as an administrator, rookie mistake on my part...
Hope this helps someone <3

If your problem persist with all those answers, try to change the file attribute to:
File.SetAttributes(yourfile, FileAttributes.Normal);

You do not have permissions to access the file.
Please be sure whether you can access the file in that drive.
string route= #"E:\Sample.text";
FileStream fs = new FileStream(route, FileMode.Create);
You have to provide the file name to create.
Please try this, now you can create.

TLDR : On my end, it had something to do with AVAST ! => Whitelist your application.
All of a sudden, I also got this UnauthorizedAccessException problem in the windows WPF program I'm writing. None of the solutions worked - except I couldn't figure out how to elevate my application to full privileges (not using VS) while at the same time, being already on the administrator account, I didn't feel the need to dig that deep in permission concerns.
The files are image files (jpg, psd, webp, etc.) I wasn't trying to open/write a directory, it has always been a valid path to a file, and I needed to write to the file, FileAccess.ReadWrite was inevitable. The files (and any of their parent directory) were not readonly (I even checked by code prior calling new FileStream(path, mode, access, share) via FileInfo.IsReadOnly) - so what happenned all of a sudden ???
Thinking about : I had an had drive crash, so I unpacked a backup of my solution code from another drive. In the meantime, I added codes in my application to PInvoke APIs to directly read hard drive sectors physical bytes as well as USB plug/unplug monitoring.
I started to get the Exception when I added those, but even though I temporarly removed the related codes from the application, I still got the UnauthorizedAccessException.
Then I remembered one thing I've done long ago, a painstaking similar issue where I wanted my application to communicate sensible data via Wifi, which was to add the executable among AVAST exceptions, and the assembly directory aswell (My app was already among the authorized apps through firewall)
Just did it for my application in AVAST settings, AND THE EXCEPTION IS GONE !!! Two whole days I'm lurking StackOverflow and the web to get moving on, FINALLY !
Details : I can't pinpoint exactly what AVAST didn't like in my application as the only changes I made :
Retrieved then launched the backup code - it worked like a charm, files (images) opens/write without problems (3 days ago)
Added USB detection (3 days ago - Just tested the code, didn't tried to open an image)
Added PInvoke physical drive direct read (2 days ago - FileStream, and the logic to define where/how to scan the damaged drive - Just tested the code, didn't tried to open an image)
Added image format detection starting from Jpg/Jfif.. 2 days ago, got the exception upon testing the code.
While searching for solutions, added an Image Gallery WPF UserControl to diplay pictures based on their signature and check which files gives the exception : almost all of them (some files opens/write okay - why ???)
Tried everything I've found on SO (since the last 2 days) until I opened AVAST settings and whitelist my application.
... now I can move on into adding a bunch of file signatures to retrieve as many datas as I could.
If this may help those who like me, aren't failing on the "I'm passing a directory path instead that of a file", yet, have no time to learn exactly why antiviruses think our own code is a malware.

Just Using the below worked for me on OSX.
var path = "TempForTest";

System.UnauthorizedAccess Exception C#

I currently have a compiled C# program but whenever I run it I get the Windows encountered a problem error.
This is from a System.UnauthorizedAccess error, how can I give access and remove this error without any need from the user side, since this program is being deployed to a lot of people and I don't want them having to make this fix manually.
Thanks

You can get the current user's application data folder using the environment variable APPDATA. Therefore, you can do something like:
string appdata = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)
string configFile = Path.Combine(appdata, configFile);
StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(configFile);
writer.WriteLine("my config data");
writer.Close();
You can also use this approach to get the temporary folder as well. You can even generate a random file name using the BCL functions. I think it's Path.GetTempFilename().

Does your application ask for Administrator's privileges at any time?

ASP.NET Relative Paths in Referenced Libraries

I have an ASP.NET website in which I am loading some validation rules from an xml file. This xml file name, with no path info, is hard coded in a library. (I know that the hard coded name is not good, but let's just go with it for this example).
When I run the website, ASP.NET tries to find the xml file in the source path, where the C# file in which name is hard coded is. This is completely mind boggling to me, as I can't fathom how, at runtime, we are even considering a source path as a possibility for resolving an unqualified filename.
// the config class, in C:\temp\Project.Core\Config.cs
public static string ValidationRulesFile {
get { return m_validationRulesFile; }
} private static string m_validationRulesFile = "validation_rules.xml";
// using the file name
m_validationRules.LoadRulesFromXml( Config.ValidationRulesFile, "Call" );
Here is the exception showing the path we are looking in is the same as Config.cs:
Exception Details: System.IO.FileNotFoundException:
Could not find file 'C:\temp\Project.Core\validation_rules.xml'.
Can anyone explain this to me? I already know how you are supposed to handle paths in general in ASP.NET so please don't respond with solutions. I just really want to understand this, since it really surprised me, and It is going to bother me to no end.
UPDATE
Here is the relevant code for LoadRulesFromXml
public void LoadRulesFromXml( string in_xmlFileName, string in_type )
{
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
xmlDoc.Load( in_xmlFileName );
...
UPDATE2
It looks like the Cassini web server gets its current directory set by VS, and indeed it is set to the path of my library project. I'm not sure exactly how VS determines which project to use for the path, but this at least explains what is happening. Thanks Joe.

If you don't supply a path, then file access will normally use the current working directory as the default. In ASP.NET this is probably your web application directory.
It's not usually a good idea to rely on the current working directory, so you can use Path.Combine to specify a different default directory, e.g. one relative to AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, which is also the web application directory for an ASP.NET app.
You should add the path explicitly to the name of the file you're opening. You could also try tracing the current working directory.
When running Cassini from Visual Studio, the current directory is inherited from whatever happens to be Visual Studio's working directory: this seems to be your case.
I.e.:
public void LoadRulesFromXml( string in_xmlFileName, string in_type )
{
// To see what's going on
Debug.WriteLine("Current directory is " +
System.Environment.CurrentDirectory);
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
// Use an explicit path
xmlDoc.Load(
System.IO.Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory,
in_xmlFileName)
);
...

At a complete guess I would say that the Method LoadRulesFromXml() is looking at the path of the Application Root URL for where the site is hosted... which is C:\temp\Project.Core\
probably by doing a Server.MapPath("~")
Can you post the code for LoadRulesFromXML or do you have that code ?