PRB: "Couldn't Find File 'Unknown'" Error When You Set Default Language to JScript (189206)

SYMPTOMS

When the default language is set to JScript for Active Server Pages (ASP) connecting to a file-based database (for example, Access, Visual FoxPro) returns an error such as the following:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'
[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access 97 Driver] Couldn't find file '(unknown)'.

This error occurs only with connect strings that contain discrete or UNC paths such as "c:\newdata\backup.mdb" or \\servername\sharename\backup.mdb, respectively. For example, adding a data connection to a Visual InterDev 1.0 Web Project for the adventure works database from within Visual InterDev 1.0 would create the following connection string in your Global.asa:

   "DSN=AdvWorks;DBQ=C:\InetPub\ASPSAMP\AdvWorks\AdvWorks.mdb;
   DriverId=25;FIL=MS Access;MaxBufferSize=512;PageTimeout=5;");

When trying to open a text file, an error occurs such as the following:

Server object error 'ASP 0177 : 800a0034'
Server.CreateObject Failed

This error occurs when calling GetFile or OpenTextFile as in the following:

   fl = fs.OpenTextFile("c:\\myfile.txt", 1, 0,0);

CAUSE

The error is due to the backslash character (\) being used as a delimiter both in file paths and as the identifier for "escape sequences" in JScript.

Examples of escape sequences are "\n" for a new line or "\b" for a backspace. Two backslashes (\\) resolve to a single backslash. If the character following the backslash is not a known escape sequence identifier, the backslash is ignored.

As a result, JScript resolves the string "c:\newdata\backup.mdb" to "c: ewdataackup.mdb" where the "\n" is replaced with a carriage return and the "\b" is replaced with a backspace. JScript would resolve "\\servername\sharename\backup.mdb" to "\servernamesharenameackup.mdb" where the "\\" is replaced with a single backslash and "\b" is replaced with a backspace.

In cases such as these, the resulting string passed to the Connection.Open method is an invalid file location, resulting in an error.

RESOLUTION

There are several possible workarounds:

Replace all backslashes (\) in your connect strings with two backslashes (\\). For example: "\\\\servername\\sharename\\backup.mdb" would resolve to "\\servername\sharename\backup.mdb."
Use VBScript instead of JScript.
Store all path information in an ODBC DSN and only pass the DSN name to the Connection.Open method as in: Connection.Open "MyDSN."

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

253604 Microsoft Access 97 database connectivity fails in Active Server Pages