LabVIEW File Explorer Cannot Open Cloud Based File Server

[Anthony_L]

Hello:

My LabVIEW file explorer control when clicked, will show logical cloud-based drive letters.

However, once the drive is double-clicked LabVIEW throws an error that the file path cannot be accessed or navigated. 

On the contrary when navigating same Cloud drive with WINDOWS 11 OS file explorer, the drive will expand to show folders, subfolders and files.

Question is whether LabVIEW 2023 32-bit file explorer (accessible grom labVIEW Front Panel has capability to navigate cloud based mapped drive?

The one I am using now is the EGNYTE file server. 

alukindo

[rolfk]

Which File Explorer are you talking about? If you mean the File Selection Dialog that LabVIEW shows when you click on the browse button of a path for instance, this is simply the standard Windows file dialog. LabVIEW only makes minor modifications to that to customize the button labels and the like.

So if you can't access a path in there, it is actually Windows itself that somehow can't. Possible reasons could be access rights, or if your path contains characters not displayable in your current 8-bit locale. LabVIEW still predominantly uses 8-bit ASCII APIs in Windows, so Unicode paths using characters that the current 8-bit locale on your computer can't represent will give for sure errors.

An error with the network provider for your server share is also an option. Not all network share drivers implement everything fully.

[Anthony_L]

Hello Rolf:

Thank you for taking time to review this. 

What you explain is the exact situation here. 

In this case, that LabVIEW file selection control, once clicked, brings up a File Explorer window that looks just like the one you see when opened from Windows File explorer directly. 

That FILE EXPLORER that opens from LabVIEW file select control, will also show the Egnyte File server LOGICAL DRIVES. 

But when those drives are clicked, the Explorer window that opens from LabVIEW throws an error! 

While a similar window opened from Windows FILE EXPLORER will navigate successfully! 

The mapped drives and underlying folder paths are all regular characters. 

So this is the dilemma. 

That the File Explorer works with those EGNYTE Cloud drives only if opened from WINDOWS FILE Explorer itself. 

[rolfk]

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@Anthony_L wrote:

That the File Explorer works with those EGNYTE Cloud drives only if opened from WINDOWS FILE Explorer itself. 

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I'm not sure if that "only" is just an exaggeration on your part, lack of testing with other applications, or really meant like that. In either case, it is most likely a bug in the actual EGNYTE cloud driver that is used to provide Windows with a virtual folder view of that cloud provider. The according interface is entirely based on COM (Component Object Model) the base of what used to be ActiveX. And Microsoft has tried hard to move away from ActiveX in favor of .Net to the point that they have actively started to remove documentation about it.

And the entire Windows shell (basically whatever you see under Explorer) is completely based on COM, and always has been very much under-documented. The few examples that showed how to expand the the Windows shell namespace with additional virtual folder view and file specific extensions were very involved, cumbersome, and usually still just a minimal example with limited to no proper error handling and full production quality functionality. A lot was left to the developer to try to figure out through trial and error and occasional posts on the net from follow developers who tackled a specific problem already.

[GerdW]

Hi Anthony,

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@Anthony_L wrote:

In this case, that LabVIEW file selection control, once clicked, brings up a File Explorer window that looks just like the one you see when opened from Windows File explorer directly. 

That FILE EXPLORER that opens from LabVIEW file select control, will also show the Egnyte File server LOGICAL DRIVES. 

But when those drives are clicked, the Explorer window that opens from LabVIEW throws an error!

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Which error does that Explorer window actually throw?

Trying to work around:

What happens when you use the ListFolder function? Does it also list all mapped server folders?

• What happens when you try to list the mapped server folder?
• What happens when you use a CMD batch file to list that folder content into a file? (So being able to use SysExec instead of ListFolder.)

[Anthony_L · Accepted solution]

Hello:

Thank you Rolk and Gerd.

I eventually got support from Egnyte cloud file services vendor and it was recommended to add the Egnyte drive as a Network drive on my Windows File Explorer. 

*** We did that, and things worked!

So now there are two drive designation for Egnyte:

(1) There is the LOGICAL drive
(2) There is the now ADDED NETWORK drive

Now the LabVIEW app can see and can navigate successfully to the added Newtwork drive.

However, the logical drive continues to remain locked-out from the application.

So adding that Egnyte Virtual Logical drive as a 'Network' drive was the solution here. See attached screen shot on how things look from my Windows Explorer. 

Regards

Anthony Lukindo

[rolfk]

Well, that's in fact the opposite of what I was expecting to go on. Weird!

[Anthony_L]

** Just re-attaching a corrected version of the previously attached png file.