"There was an error opening this document. The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is i

[_SLawson_]

"There was an error opening this document. The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect."

I tried different versions, no avail.

I think it has to do with the password somehow, but I do not know. I can copy the files from the web folder to my desktop and they open fine (after entering the password AGAIN), but I can not open them directly form the web folder - it does not ask for the password again, just pops up the error.

Adobe's support really upset me (insert explicative here) by keeping me on the phone for 20 min, collecting all sorts of information about me (not the problem) with some lady who barely spoke English, just to tell me to go to the website. No surprise they need to charge for tech support, customer service is doing everything but "service". I hate companies that do this. I am thinking of using another PDF reader, I have heard good things about them. Check

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software

Has anyone ever been able to find a fix? I can not find anything on this site.

[_SLawson_]

I'm still struggling, and the temporary work around is getting to be a bother. For the time being I am trying to use my backup computer when I am dealing with WebDav.

George, come up with the fix and send MS the invoice, I am sure they can afford it.

[_Jody_OHalloran_]

My Possible Solution:

My boss was having trouble opening 2 of a group of 5 or so adobe files with reader 8.x with this exact message. They had chinese characters in the file, as well as in the name.

I could open the files from my computer however, so i simply went to "save as copy" for each of them adding a number 2 at the end of file (ie, productline2.pdf).

Both appear to open up fine now from his computer.

Good luck
jody o

[_SLawson_]

Well thanks for the input, but I know my files are simply named (file.pdf) and I created them so they should not have anything funny inside.

I think someone else here tried that already as well.

[_BB_Pound_]

I suspect it is the invalid characters (second colon, german or chinese characters) in the file path, not the filename. At least that seems to be my problem. I don't have a solution (other then renaming paths).

[_SLawson_]

"c:\documents and settings\xxxx\https:\yyyy.com\webdav\index.php\\zzz\file.pdf"

Where xxxx is the Windows user name and
yyyy is the website name and
zzz is the username

No special charatecters in there.

It seems as though it is picking up the first half (up to the https) and does not need to be doing so.

I'm still stumped.

[_mgg99_]

I agree SLawson.

Today I found a third-party application that works. It opens PDFs with no problem.

It uses a network drive rather than what we're using...a web folder.

It's even better than using WebFolders (WebDAV) because it allows to create TXT files, word docs by simply right-clicking in the empty white space where as us web folders only allows folder creation thru the right-click prompt.

The problem is: It is not suitable solution because $800 is pretty steep. The trial works excellent > http://www.webdrive.com/products/webdrive/index.html
So you may want to use that route.

So then I became to think more ---- instead of using web folders let's use a network drive. In my case, it doesn't work because my site is secure and in XP I am unable to map a network drive to a secure web site that is using SharePoint.

I still am investigating to map a network drive to a secure site that requires authentication so PDFs can be opened in an explorer view.

[_J__O_Connell_]

Microsoft has released a hot fix KB943337 that resolves my problems (consistent with what has been reported here) with webdav and PDFs. You must request this fix it is not readily downloadable. Although this article talks to Office 2007 it has cleared up my problems with XP and Office 2003.

I hope this helps some of you, as this has been a very frustrating and time consuming resolution.

Reagrds,

Joe

[_SLawson_]

Winner winner - chicken dinner...

I installed the patch and then realized I needed something else installed (per MS's site). I never did do the previous install or even look to see if it was installed, but I did get this patch and it is working.

Thanks.

[_George_Blessing_]

Howdy, everyone!

Wow, J O'Connell! You definitely receive the GOLD STAR for this find!

I, too, have tested the installation of the patch on machines that have the 907306 WebDAV patch and the PDF functionality has been restored!

I am hoping that Microsoft will make this patch generally-available rather than keeping it as a "non-public" patch. From everything I've read and the past research I did, I can't see where having these two patches distributed via Microsoft Update would cause any negative side effects. If you use Acrobat Reader with WebDAV, you're good to go. If you don't, no big deal!

Thanks to all for the knowledge sharing! Good work!

George B.

[_Phillip_Millhollen_]

Awesome find J. O'Connell. Our company (Daptiv), which is a SaaS provider, had implemented WebDav, but we couldn't figure out why some users could download PDF files within their browser and why others were receiving the infamous error that many people reported above since about June 2007. The issue seemed to be isolated to users who had Windows XP and Office 2007 installed. I requested the patch you referenced and now everyone is happy and I am a hero.

The only problem that some of our users are experiencing is that they are unable to download and open PDF files that are larger than about 25k. The browser window opens and they can see the download status in the lower left hand corner of the browser, but it stalls at various times during the download. It is only happening for a couple customers that we know of, that are each behind their company's firewalls. The users try to download the files at home and have no issues. They are not having problems with any other file type, just PDFs. From troubleshooting with them, I have determined that it is not determined by either browser version (IE6 & IE7) or Adobe Reader Version (v7 & v8). Does anyone have an idea what network, browser or other setting could be causing this issue?

[_SureshAnnangudi_]

I had similar problem. Here is how I solved it.

I deleted all the temporary files in the folder (C:\Documents and Settings\[user profile]\Local Settings\Temp). The number of files was 65000+, but was occupied only 4mb. Then the acrobat opened properly.
For more solutions:
http://www.deerbrook.com/downloads/sysreqs/Bridging/new_page_1.htm

Hope this helps.

[Guest · Accepted solution]

I came across the problem when opening a particular PDF file this morning--I did a google search and then I am here.

Just found out the cause of my problem. I was opening a file that has a filename containing Chinese characters (I am Chinese :-)). Now the problem is gone with the file renamed.

I guess this problem might happen on files with a filename in other non-English languages as well.

[Dipos]

Hello

here 's the easiest way and it worked pretty well with me

if u have an gmail account u just compose a message containing the file that u cant open to ur self (ur g-mail account)  then  open the message and click on view and voila

i wish it work with u guys

[Divine_reliability16B8 · Accepted solution]

We are running windows Vista for us saving the file and renaming it worked.

Thanks for the advice

[Bearsk1n]

I discovered another source for this problem is a mixed MAC / PC environment where the MAC users have placed a non-standard character in a directory name.

As Windows/Adobe traverses the path it fails on the invalid directory name.

Using Windows Explorer I could see the Boxes representing unprintable characters, I simply renamed the problem directory and all worked perfectly.

[Guest]

You nailed it.  The error was exactly what the error message said.  The Mac users used "invalid" characters in the directory path.  It would work fine for them, but the PC users couldn't open the file.  The non-displaying characters prevented it.

Nice catch!

[deepakb13786652]

Hi SLawson,

Please test the steps:

1. Go-to https://admin.microsoft.com/ and Sign in with same Id that user is using while connecting  SP account.
2. Microsoft Admin centre will open.
3. Now, click on “Show all” in the bottom of Left hand side menu.
4. Admin centre will expand->click on SharePoint.
5. A new window will open, click on ‘Policies’ option in left hand side menu->click on Access control option
6. On right hand side, 4 options will be shown, click on last option “Apps that don’t use Modern Authentication”-> select ‘Allow access’. Then wait for 15-30 mins and try again to connect.

[Help32615589lyhq]

Hello, 

The solution I came across for my environment (Computers are joined through Azure AD) was:

1. Sign in to your computer using  an admin account that is not experiancing this issue.

2. Delete the account entirely under system properties > Advanced > user profiles.

3. sign back in to re create the account.  

4. Sync all the users data back through OneDrive.

This will probably work for other environments too just make sure you have your data backed up and saved somewhere other than the account that you are about to delete.

Hope this helps.