Copy File error with '+' character in file name

(1) Share

Report

Posted on by Mark277

There must be a recent change to the Sharepoint Copy File action, because this has definitely worked many times.

I have a file with a '+' character in the filename like this "MyDocument_+abc.pdf"

Let's say the whole URL looks like this:

https://myWeb.sharepoint.com/sites/mySite/documents/MyDocument_+abc.pdf

My workflow should copy this file to another site/library, but I get the following error:

Failed to verify the existence of source object at

"https://myWeb.sharepoint.com/sites/mySite/documents/MyDocument_ abc.pdf"

due to error 'The system cannot find the file specified. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070002)'.

It erases the '+' character and replaces it with a blank.

I've already tried to use uri encoding, so the file name would look like this "MyDocument_%2Babc.pdf", but I get the exact same error. I know that this has worked before, because in my company, they use a lot of '+' characters in file names and there was never a problem with the workflow until today. Is there any way to find out if there was a change in December 2021 with the power automate engine and how it handles those special characters?

Categories:

Using flows

I have the same question (0)

All responses (2)

Answers (1)

Sort by

v-bofeng-msft Microsoft Employee on at

Like (0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hi @mks227 :

You could try to get the file id first , and then move the file by id. I've made a test for your reference:

My Flow:

The Result:

Best Regards,

Bof

Was this reply helpful? Yes No
Verified answer

Mark277 9 on at

Like (1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!
Hi @v-bofeng-msft
First, I've found a solution and thanks for your suggestion, it pointed me in the right direction.

So, I've tried your solution first, but at first I got the same error message, as I'm using variables for the Site Address and File Path. When I manually pick the Site and File, it worked like in your post. It seems Power Automate is handling the values from variables and other inputs differently.

What I noticed was, that when you use the actions "Copy File" or "Move File" and manually pick the files via the file explorer, the path gets encoded in a different way when the workflow is running. A blank space is usually %20, but here it's %2b and '+' should be %2B, but it's %252b and so on...

My solution was to double encode the FilePath variable as well and then use that value to copy the file:
encodeUriComponent(encodeUriComponent(variables('FilePath')))

Was this reply helpful? Yes No