ITPAM Unable to read the File available under UNC File Store

Products

• CA Process Automation Base

Issue/Introduction

CA Process Automation (ITPAM) is unable to read the File available under Shared Common File Store, and gives the below exception

'\\hostname.company.com\sharepath\FILESTORE\custom'
CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories.
failed to switch to directory \\hostname.company.com\sharepath\FILESTORE\custom

The file is present in that location.

Environment

Release : 4.3

Component : Process Automation

Resolution

The error is correct; Windows CMD (which is how the Read File Operator is executing on the server) will not accept a UNC file path as the current working directory. However, there is an alternative - you can specify one in the file name itself.

To do this, leave the present working directory blank, or specify a local drive location (e.g "C:\\temp"). Then set the Source File Name to the full UNC path to it

"\\\\hostname.company.com\\sharepath\\FILESTORE\\custom\\textfile1.txt"

and it reads the file correctly. Note that backslashes need to be escaped with another backslash in the Java parameters, so the \\ becomes \\\\ etc.

It is necessary to grant the user whose credentials you access the working directory to also have credentials to execute on the server the process runs on.