OA Windows-related task fails: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect : CloudBlue Technical Support

Symptoms

The Operations Automation (OA) background task Turn off FTP access for Hosted Service User fails with an error as below:

Task name       Turn off FTP access for Hosted Service User 1038998 on host 'winweb06.hosting.local' (host_id=38).
Last execution output   Exception during execution of MPF request: 'The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect. [<response><errorContext description="The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect." code="0x8007007b" executeSeqNo="3"><errorSource namespace="NTFSManager" procedure="changeFileOwner"/></errorContext></response>]'.

Other POA tasks may fail with the same diagnostics, for example tasks Delete webspace, Configure security settings for site application. Failure can also be different, for example:

Destination host 'WINWEB01.provider.tld' (#xxx), IP '192.168.xxx.xxx' : Provisioning request failed. The system cannot find the path specified. [<response><errorContext description="The system cannot find the path specified." code="0x80070003" executeSeqNo="9"><errorSource namespace="NTFSManager" procedure="setFileOwner"/></errorContext></response>]

Cause

The full path of one or more files or directories within the customer's webspace is longer than 255 characters or contains illegal characters.

The limitations of the underlying technology (MPF - Microsoft Provisioning Framework) used by OA does not allow OA to handle objects on filesystems when the full path is longer than 255 characters, or objects whose names are legal in NTFS but not legal in the Windows API (common for Frontpage sites).

Folder with webspace has a name like

D:\CustomerData\webspaces\webspace_00123456.{37565F78-3C79-4DD8-9D3C-CF76DF6B41E3}

and is not able to be opened.

Resolution

Case 1:

Use the following workaround:

List all files down the webspace file hierarchy

C:\> dir E:\CustomerData\webspaces\<webspace_id>\ /b /s > c:\files.txt

Use a tool such as Excel or the Linux shell to calculate the length of strings in c:\files.txt. For example, using the Linux command line, you could use:
```
awk '{ if (length($0) > 254 ) print }' files.txt > long_paths.txt
```
or locally (if Powershell is present)
```
PS> $data = Get-Content "c:\files.txt"
PS> foreach ($line in $data) {
    if ($line.length -gt 254){write-host $line}
}
```
Temporarily move all files with path longer than 254 characters out of the webspace
Process the task
Move files back to their original locations

You can also use the solutions in this Microsoft KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320081/en-us.

A permanent solution is being considered by OA maintenance team in the scope of an alternate provisioning technology to provide Windows Shared Hosting services.

Case 2

Rename the folder back to original name via command line:

rename "D:\CustomerData\webspaces\webspace_00123456.{37565F78-3C79-4DD8-9D3C-CF76DF6B41E3}" "webspace_00123456"

Internal content

Link on internal Article