👀 Views: 0 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-08-21

C# FileSystemWatcher Network Drives

Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. I'm attempting to set up I need help solving I'm learning this framework and After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm encountering an 'Access Denied' exception when trying to watch a network drive using `FileSystemWatcher` in my C# application. The watcher is set up to monitor changes to a directory on a shared network location, but it throws the exception consistently as soon as it starts. Here's a simplified version of my setup: ```csharp using System; using System.IO; class Program { static void Main() { FileSystemWatcher watcher = new FileSystemWatcher(); watcher.Path = \\\"\\\\NETWORK_DRIVE\SharedFolder\\\"; watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastWrite; watcher.Filter = "*.txt"; watcher.Changed += OnChanged; watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true; Console.WriteLine("Watching for changes... Press 'q' to quit."); while (Console.Read()!='q'); } private static void OnChanged(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine($"File: {e.FullPath} {e.ChangeType}"); } } ``` I've double-checked the permissions on the network share, and my user account has full access to the folder. I even added the `FileSystemRights.Modify` permission explicitly, but the issue persists. The exception message states: ``` Access to the path '\\NETWORK_DRIVE\SharedFolder' is denied. ``` I've also tried running the application with elevated permissions, but that hasn't changed anything. The issue only arises when I point the watcher to the network location; if I use a local directory, it works perfectly fine. Is there a specific configuration or setting I might be missing for `FileSystemWatcher` to work properly with network drives? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! For context: I'm using C# on Ubuntu. Am I missing something obvious? I recently upgraded to C# stable. Thanks for taking the time to read this! Hoping someone can shed some light on this. I'm on Windows 11 using the latest version of C#. What are your experiences with this?