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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.

Application can find 'Downloads' folder when debugging but not on IIS

I have an application that allows the user to upload a file (saving it to in a folder located in the wwwroot of the ASPNETCORE application). From here they can make edits to it and then they can choose to export the file as a csv/ xml/ xlsx which downloads the file to the user's 'downloads' folder.
While debugging in Visual Studio this all works fine however when I publish and deploy the application to IIS I am getting the exception
Error saving file C:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Downloads(FILE NAME)
Could not find part of the path C:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Downloads(FILE NAME)
This is the current way I am getting the downloads folder:
FileInfo file = new FileInfo(Path.Combine(Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(#"%USERPROFILE%\Downloads"), data.Filename + "." + data.FileType));
However I have also tried the solution that Hans Passant has answered to a similar question here. Both solutions worjk fine while debugging locally however as soon as I publish them, this one produces the exception:
Value cannot be null. Parameter name: path1
Which I presume is thrown at this point here when I try and save the file to the user's download folder.
using (var package = new ExcelPackage(file))
{
var workSheet = package.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("ExportSheet");
workSheet.Cells.LoadFromCollection(exports, true);
package.Save();
}
I don't really know how I would be able to reproduce these exceptions seeing as locally using Visual Studio it all works fine.
Has anyone else came across this issue while trying to download a file?
UPDATE: When the application is running on IIS, it seems to be using that as the user profile instead of the actually user, so when it tries to navigate to the Downloads folder, it cannot find it. How can I force it to use the user's profile?
LoadUserProfile is already set to True.

Web applications have no knowledge of the end-user's computer's filesystem!
So using Environment.GetFolderPath or Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables in server side code will only reveal the server-side user (i.e. the Windows Service Identity)'s profile directories which is completely separate and distinct from your web-application's actual browser-based users OS user profile.
As a simple thought-experiment: consider a user running a weird alien web-browser on an even more alien operating system (say, iBrowse for the Amiga!) - the concept of a Windows-shell "Downloads" directory just doesn't exist, and yet here they are, browsing your website. What do you expect your code would do in this situation?
To "download" a file to a user, your server-side web-application should serve the raw bytes of the generated file (e.g. using HttpResponse.TransmitFile) with the Content-Disposition: header to provide a hint to the user's browser that they should save the file rather than try to open it in the browser.

Saving text to image in server

I am following the link to save text to image from the following link:
How to generate an image from text on fly at runtime . Taken the code from the accepted answer .
It is working fine in local machine.
The same program is promoted to a build server in a remote machine. And the url I am accessing from my local machine to save the text to image.
The output says "Image is saved", but actually the image is not saved in the path saved in web.config of remote server.
I am not even getting any error message to know whats the problem as there is no exception.
I am running out of ideas as in what could be the issue and why the image is not getting saved. Any suggestions?

Here are some things you can do:
Make sure the folder where you are writing to foresees modify rights to the IIS Apppool identity of the application. You'll need to add it by searching for it in full instead of just the identity, so
IIS APPPOOL\YourAppsIdentity
(note the space between IIS and APPPOOL) and be sure to set the search location to the server machine, not to the domain, which is what it would default to if the machine is joined into one (otherwise the name won't resolve).
In your application's Web.config file you could also set <customErrors mode="Off"> (in the <system.web> section) during development so you get some more verbose error descriptions in the browser window if or when exceptions do bubble up. They can help you on your way to figure out what's going wrong. Don't forget to remove the entry from the Web.config file again once the application goes into production or set the value to "On" if you do, in fact, use custom errors.
You can make this code a little more robust by doing some access control checks on the directory before attempting a write operation. this can help you on your way.
Hope this helps.

File.Exists() always returns false on IIS

The file path that I'm checking with File.Exists() resides on a mapped drive (Z:\hello.txt). The code runs fine in debug environment, however in IIS, it always returns false
var fullFileName = string.Format("{0}\\{1}", ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FileName"], fileName);
if (System.IO.File.Exists(fullFileName))
Why is this so, and how can I workaround this?
I have granted everyone full read/write permissions in that mapped drive
EDIT:
I tried deleting the file via \\192.168.1.12\Examples\Files\2.xml and I get the same result. It doesn't detect the file on IIS, but works fine on debug

I think your application do not has permission on "Z:"
Is "Z:" network disk?

I have had similar issues using network mapped drives, when running debug code application works perfectly and when running release version application cannot find the file.
If the files are stored on the same server as the application is deployed we found a solution by storing the local drive directory location of the mapped drive for example Z:\files\ could be E:\folder\folder1\
If the application is deployed on a separate server we found using the full network name works for example \\server1\folder\
I hope this proves helpful to you.

Your web application is running under a certain security context and you need to find out what context this is. If it's a normal user, open a command prompt as the user (using the runas tool), map the required drive using the command prompt (be sure to use the /persistent:yes flag)
Alternatively why can't you just use a UNC path (\\serverName\shareName) and avoid all this nonsense?
EDIT: 2013-05-27
To troubleshoot this, create a new application pool, based on whatever app pool you want. Then set the identity that this pool runs under as shown in the attached screenshot.
Make sure that this user has the correct privileges on the file share and then retest it

May be you should use Path.DirectorySeparatorChar

Access denied to path , when uploading image to folder in server

Am getting error when you are going to upload the file on specified folder in the server. Here I am going to upload P6100083.jpg in storeimg folder. When I am going to upload I am getting the following error:
Access to the path 'C:\inetpub\vhosts\bookmygroups.com\httpdocs\storeimg\P6100083.jpg' is denied.
Can anyone help me... How to use permisiion and were to use...
My code is while uploading image
if (FileUpload1.HasFile)
{
float fileSize = FileUpload1.PostedFile.ContentLength;
float floatConverttoKB = fileSize / 1024;
float floatConverttoMB = floatConverttoKB / 1024;
string DirName = "storeimg";
string savepath = Server.MapPath(DirName + "/");
DirectoryInfo dir = new DirectoryInfo(savepath);
// string savepath = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\ssis3\\My Documents\\Visual Studio 2005\\WebSites\\finalbookgroups\\" + DirName + "\\";
if (fileSize < 4194304)
{
string filename = Server.HtmlEncode(FileUpload1.FileName);
string extension = System.IO.Path.GetExtension(filename).ToUpper();
if (extension.Equals(".jpg") || extension.Equals(".JPG") || extension.Equals(".JPEG") || extension.Equals(".GIF"))
{
savepath += filename;
FileUpload1.SaveAs(savepath);
}
}
}
Thanks in advance

I have no success making my upload or any write operation on filesystem work on IIS7.
Still getting the error: Access to the path is denied.
My AppPool is running under Network Service. I have granted all kinds of accounts Full Control (Network Service, Network, IIS_IUSR, Administrator, Users, Everyone), restarted the webservice several times, studied all IIS7 settings, googled for two hours and nothing works.
IIS7 and WS2008 s-u-c-k-s. Sorry for the term. Anybody can help?
I just wanted to add: I noticed that in the upload's destination folder's Properties there's this checkbox named "Read-only (Only applies to files in folder)" and it's checked. It cannot be unchecked, comes back checked after unchecking and clicking the OK button. Is that IIS7 guarding it?
Editing this message to add the SOLUTION: My admin has turned off the silly UAC "the security confirmation feature" on our server, restarted the machine and it works now. No "write" access rights for "Network Service" or any other IIS-used account was needed. When accessing the file system in a ASP.NET web application using the integrated authentication and having the impersonation set to true in its web.confing, the file system seems to be accessed by the authentified end-user's account, not by the Network Service account which the AppPool is running under. (Many people tell you to set Network Service permissions, but that is not true.) So you need to set the "write" permissions for your end-users (usually domain users: "DOMAIN\domain users") on your particular folder.
Oh yea, and the "Read-only (Only applies to files in folder)" checkbox mentioned above does not seem to have any effect. However Microsoft says "some programs might have problems writing to such folder and you should use command line statement "attrib -r -s" to get rid of the Read-Only attribute" -- but it won't work. It will stay there checked-grayed. But don't worry about that. Microsoft becomes more and more silly every day.

Indead, it's a server issue.
You need to verify if the user underlying your application pool has write access to the directory.
If you use IIS7, you have a new feature that helps you give custom write to this user and dun need to change the user.
Look at this link:
http://www.adopenstatic.com/cs/blogs/ken/archive/2008/01/29/15759.aspx
Hope this helps.

This is a server issue. Make sure you have the necessary rights to write files.
Btw, since you call ToUpper() on extension there's no reason to test for ".jpg".

If you are using Plesk Panel, go to file manager of Plesk Panel. List files and folders inside "httpdocs". Each file and folder has a lock icon at the very right. Click that of "storeimg" folder to change permissions. Click advenced button. Give full permission to these:
Plesk IIS WP User (IWPD_214(your_login_name))
Plesk IIS WP User (IWPD_214(your_login_name))
And click OK.

First you check the permission is enable or not if not then go to that folder which folder has to be use for containing files then right click on folder then there will be display folder properties then click on security there will be display multiple number of user which user have to be permit then click allow that all permission will be activated.

First, make sure your code runs fine locally (I assume that something you've already done).
Then deploy to your TEST or UAT environment. If you're having issue there, then this is a configuration issue. Make sure the service account under which your website's app pool is running has access to the folder.
Please make use of C# method Path.Combine() to build up your path and avoid issues with leading or trailing / and \.