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"Create New Folder" erro "The system cannot find the path specified" incase the Path contain "#"

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Posted on by johnjohnPter

1,811 Super User 2024 Season 1

I have a workflow, that will create some folder structures when a main folder get added:-

Here is the main action to create those sub-folders:-

Now everything is working well, but when i added a folder with a name that contain "#" such as "Invoice #100" , the action will fail with this error:-

{
  "error": {
    "code": 502,
    "source": "flow-apim-msmanaged-na-centralus-01.azure-apim.net",
    "clientRequestId": "6295d836-eda6-4f8c-b1bf-281f321705a7",
    "message": "BadGateway",
    "innerError": {
      "status": 500,
      "message": "The system cannot find the path specified. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070003)\r\nclientRequestId: 6295d836-eda6-4f8c-b1bf-281f321705a7\r\nserviceRequestId: b3715ba1-a0da-0000-3d3b-9a38139b0dee"
    }
  }
}

Any advice?

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Two possible things to try.

1) Try encoding the folder path using EncodeUriComponent(). SharePoint doesn't like using spaces and special characters directly in folder paths.

2) '#' used to be an invalid character in SharePoint Online. It had to be enabled using some PowerShell. I'm not sure if that default has changed or not. Here's a blog post on how to activate its use. New support for # and % in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business - Microsoft Community Hub

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johnjohnPter 1,811 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Pstork1
we did not do any thing regarding enabling the # .. also i used EncodeUriComponent() but i got the same error. seems even EncodeUriComponent() do not like the # ...

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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If the encodeUriComponent() doesn't work then you should look at the Blog post I referenced and use the PowerShell there to enable support for # in SharePoint Online. The only other choice is to not use special characters.

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johnjohnPter 1,811 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Pstork1

But since we are able to create the Parent folder with "#" character using SharePoint UI, then this means that we already have this option enabled, am i correct?

Also i am able to get a folder by path even if this folder has # in its Path .. but creating a folder will fail.. here is a child flow where i am passing the folder path as `AccountMasterFiles/999999#43/` :

and i am able to get the folder:-

unlike Create Folder, where power automate will raise exception in case the FolderPath contain # as follow:-

Any advice?

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Pstork1 68,717 Most Valuable Professional on at

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I did some testing and this seems to be a bug in the connector. Although you can create a folder with # in the name you can't use it in the path leading to the folder. Putting the path inside an EncodeUriComponent works, but creates a seperate folder tree with the endcoded name in the root.

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johnjohnPter 1,811 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@Pstork1

Yes this will create a new folder same happen at my end.. currently i will break the flow and send am email to the main folder creator that the process can not create sub-folders for a main folder with # character.. same will happen with % ...

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