Can not rename any folders/files, error: Can't find the specified file.

[jnelsoninjax]

Win 11, in Explorer I go to my downloads folder, try to rename a folder and I get this error message:

If I go via command prompt it also says it can not locate the file. This happens on everything. I have run chkdsk /f and the DISM and SFC commands, however, this issue remains. It just started doing this last night, does anybody have a clue what could be causing this?

[TheGhostPhantom]

The file is gone, if you were to perform a chkdsk I suspect orphan files would be discovered or already discovered when you ran it. This likely is a side effect of a drive that is failing or starting to fail

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 01/06/2024 at 14:49, TheGhostPhantom said:

The file is gone, if you were to perform a chkdsk I suspect orphan files would be discovered or already discovered when you ran it. This likely is a side effect of a drive that is failing or starting to fail

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I just made that folder, how could it be gone? The drive is an m.2,  it is also happening on the mechanical drive, so I do not think it is hardware failure and here is what CrystalDisk shows:

Edited June 1, 2024 by jnelsoninjax

[adrynalyne]

If maxpath is exceeded, this will happen. While NTFS supports greater than 256 characters in path, File Explorer does not. 
 

Try renaming with PowerShell. 

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 01/06/2024 at 15:19, adrynalyne said:

If maxpath is exceeded, this will happen. While NTFS supports greater than 256 characters in path, File Explorer does not. 
 

Try renaming with PowerShell. 

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How do I do that? If a file name has spaces in it PS and command prompt do not understand it.

[adrynalyne]

  On 01/06/2024 at 15:50, jnelsoninjax said:

How do I do that? If a file name has spaces in it PS and command prompt do not understand it.

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Quotes around the path. 

[Circaflex]

it does sound like you hit the max characters, is it a folder within many other folders or something? or a really long folder name and then nested in there? you can rename the parent folder to something shorter, or use powershell, or at worst move the folder you want to name to a new location (say on the desktop), rename it then  move it. But i would first fix your folder structure that is causing the max limit

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 01/06/2024 at 16:52, Circaflex said:

it does sound like you hit the max characters, is it a folder within many other folders or something? or a really long folder name and then nested in there? you can rename the parent folder to something shorter, or use powershell, or at worst move the folder you want to name to a new location (say on the desktop), rename it then  move it. But i would first fix your folder structure that is causing the max limit

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It is a folder inside of Downloads called Complete, but it does it regardless of where I am, I can be in the root of C and it still doesn't work

[Skyfrog]

Does the folder contain any files named with illegal characters such as < > : " / \ | * ?

[nekrosoft13]

  On 01/06/2024 at 19:11, jnelsoninjax said:

It is a folder inside of Downloads called Complete, but it does it regardless of where I am, I can be in the root of C and it still doesn't work

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"Complete"? is this something with torrents?

 

And inside that folder there is a file with super long file name? if that is the case you hit max character length.

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 01/06/2024 at 19:40, nekrosoft13 said:

"Complete"? is this something with torrents?

 

And inside that folder there is a file with super long file name? if that is the case you hit max character length.

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Nothing to do with torrents. It also happens inside the downloads folder, and also in the root of the drive and the root of drive D

[jnelsoninjax]

  On 02/06/2024 at 07:20, micko68 said:

@jnelsoninjax Found this in a Microsoft Community forum post, not sure if this will help or be completely useless. Don't have anything else to try sorry.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/create-or-rename-folder-issues-cant-find-the/2a909b3f-4f54-4e0c-b957-795a7692f7ff

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Interesting but I do not have a Win10 machine to try.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Try closing your web browser(s) and any other programs that may be downloading to that directory.  Are you then able to go into the directory in question and see whatever its contents are (presumably subdirectories and other files)?  If so, try creating a new directory named something like C:\TEMP and moving the directory from the ..\Downloads\ directory to this new location. 

Now try going into the C:\TEMP directory and deleting whatever is inside of it.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

probably not the most popular answer, but to me this would be a wipe and reload situation. Seems like corruption somewhere, possibly in the formatting table itself on the drive.

[jnelsoninjax]

Well, I have not run into this issue anymore, so I don't really know what to think about it.