Illegal characters in path

Help & Support
1

Getting an “illegal characters in path” error when trying to do an update/scan of a series. The folder already existed before from SB/SAB, and the naming convention looks totally sane. It is a UNC path, permissions should be okay because Sonarr was able to add a new episode into the same season folder that it should be trying to scan and it does update the metadata in the folders during the scan. Another show under the same path scans cleanly with no errors. The log doesn’t give me enough detail to try and identify what is making it upset, even at trace level.

Running version 2.0.0.2277 under Windows as an application (to avoid potential issues with a service & network disks)
The path for the show is \NASD7B111\Multimedia\TV\Survivor and copy & pasting that into the Windows Run box shows me the directory. Season folders are enabled (and already exist)

14-11-21 01:15:38.2|Debug|DiskScanService|Scanning ‘\NASD7B111\Multimedia\TV\Survivor’ for video files
14-11-21 01:15:38.2|Error|EventAggregator|DiskScanService failed while processing [SeriesUpdatedEvent]

System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path, Boolean checkAdditional)
at System.IO.Path.InternalCombine(String path1, String path2)
at System.IO.FileSystemEnumerableIterator1.CreateSearchResult(SearchData localSearchData, WIN32_FIND_DATA findData) at System.IO.FileSystemEnumerableIterator1.MoveNext()
at System.Collections.Generic.List1..ctor(IEnumerable1 collection)
at System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(String path, String searchPattern, SearchOption searchOption)
at NzbDrone.Common.Disk.DiskProviderBase.GetFiles(String path, SearchOption searchOption) in m:\BuildAgent\work\328d72309b633a8\src\NzbDrone.Common\Disk\DiskProviderBase.cs:line 121
at NzbDrone.Core.MediaFiles.DiskScanService.GetVideoFiles(String path, Boolean allDirectories) in m:\BuildAgent\work\328d72309b633a8\src\NzbDrone.Core\MediaFiles\DiskScanService.cs:line 112
at NzbDrone.Core.MediaFiles.DiskScanService.Scan(Series series) in m:\BuildAgent\work\328d72309b633a8\src\NzbDrone.Core\MediaFiles\DiskScanService.cs:line 91
at NzbDrone.Core.MediaFiles.DiskScanService.Handle(SeriesUpdatedEvent message) in m:\BuildAgent\work\328d72309b633a8\src\NzbDrone.Core\MediaFiles\DiskScanService.cs:line 143
at NzbDrone.Core.Messaging.Events.EventAggregator.PublishEvent[TEvent](TEvent event) in m:\BuildAgent\work\328d72309b633a8\src\NzbDrone.Core\Messaging\Events\EventAggregator.cs:line 56

2

What OS is the server hosting the share running?

Unfortunately the scan is dying trying to get the list of files so there isn’t an opportunity for Sonarr to return exactly which file is causing the issue, but one of the files in that folder seems to contain an invalid character, which on Windows is one of the following characters: \ / : * ? < > |. ? is the most commonly seen one in episode titles, if its not replaced by a valid character in Windows then I’d expect to see this issue (but it could be any one of those).

3

Okay, figured it out - here’s the cause in case anybody else runs into this, might be a hint.

The share is hosted on a Qnap array running Linux.

The files that it was objecting to the existence of were thumbnails for two people in a hidden “.actors” directory. The two in particular that broke things were:
-rw-r–r-- 1 admin administ 39532 Jul 14 2013 James_"J.T.“Thomas_Jr…tbn
-rw-r–r-- 1 admin administ 31033 Jul 14 2013 Robert"Bob”_Crowley.tbn

They existed because the array previously was running xbmc and downloaded its own metadata for them, and the quotation mark is a valid character under Linux.

4

Thanks for letting us know, if only Windows would support the same characters…