ASP.NET MVC FileNotFoundException error

Question

I'm having a weird error which is related to an earlier post. I am checking if a file exists before downloading. This works for PDFs, but not for any other type of document.

Here is my controller action and the typical path for a PDF and a PowerPoint file, the PowerPoint does not work, the File.Exists always returns false. Both files physically exist. This is quite baffling, as it results in a FileNotFoundException for non-PDFs.

/Documents//FID//TestDoc//27a835a5-bf70-4599-8606-6af64b33945d/FIDClasses.pdf

~/Documents//FID//pptest//ce36e7a0-14de-41f3-8eb7-0d543c7146fe/PPttest.ppt

The joke is that copying and pasting the file path into explorer leads to the file, so what could be the problem?

[UnitOfWork]
public ActionResult Download(int id)
{
    Document doc = _documentRepository.GetById(id);

    if (doc != null)
    {
        if (System.IO.File.Exists(Server.MapPath(doc.filepath)))
        {
            _downloadService.AddDownloadsForDocument(doc.document_id, _UserService.CurrentUser().user_id);
            return File(doc.filepath, doc.mimetype, doc.title);
        }
    }
    return RedirectToAction("Index");
}

Answer 1

Check the permissions on the PPT file and the directory, check the file doesn't have some 'zone' information attached to it because you downloaded it from somewhere else.