Exiftool cmd fails when run via java process for UNC/network path

[hmengare]

The below exiftool cmd when run directly on cmd prompt is working fine:

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exiftool.exe \\HOSTNAME\workarea\import\36\content\test.DNG -preview:all -b -m -W \\HOSTNAME\workarea\import\36\content\4%f_%t.%s
Also if we run the same command via java process:

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Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command); it is working fine.

But when the same command is executed via java process

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Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command, null, workingDir); it is failing. Here the value of workingDir = \\HOSTNAME\workarea\import\36\content


This is happening only when the file is on network location, because when the working directory is
C:\data\workarea\import\36\content the exiftool cmd with java process

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Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command, null, workingDir); works fine.


Below is the log statement for the failed cmd:

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execCommand: Process started.
execCommand: STDOUT:
    1 image files read
    3 files could not be read
    0 output files created
execCommand: STDERR:
Error creating directory /
Error creating //HOSTNAME/workarea/import/36/content/4/test_JpgFromRaw.jpg
Error creating directory /
Error creating //HOSTNAME/workarea/import/36/content/4/test_PreviewImage.jpg
Error creating directory /
Error creating //HOSTNAME/workarea/import/36/content/4/test_ThumbnailTIFF.tiff
execCommand: Process completed with exit value 1

exiftool version:12.29

[Phil Harvey]

I don't see how this could be an ExifTool issue, but for some reason it seems that ExifTool doesn't think that "/" is a directory when run like this.  Why should this be different than when run basically all other ways?

Just for fun I will add a patch so ExifTool doesn't test to see if "/" is a directory, but I don't know if this will help.

- Phil

[FrankB]

I dont know what

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Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command, null, workingDir);
does. But if it starts a new cmd.exe that will fail, because cmd.exe does not support UNC paths.

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Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22631.4037]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

P:\>c:

C:\>cd \temp

C:\temp>cd \\10.10.10.12\backup
'\\10.10.10.12\backup'
CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories.

C:\temp>

[Phil Harvey]

I had another thought.  If the Perl runtime environment doesn't properly identify the system it could cause a problem like this.  You can use this command to see the system type in the ExifTool environment:

exiftool -p "${filename;$_=$^O}" FILE

- Phil

[FrankB]

Just ran a test with ExifToolGui, that has a similar function builtin. It runs OK, so I dont think ExifTool/Perl is a suspect.

This is the function in GUI:



Extracts are on the network path:



Sysinternals process explorer showing how Exiftool.exe is called:



If it helps, this is the (Delphi/Pasal) source:
https://github.com/FrankBijnen/ExifToolGui/blob/main/Source/ExifTool.pas

Look for method function ET_StayOpen(WorkDir: string): boolean;

[FrankB]

exiftool -p "${filename;$_=$^O}" FILE

I my case, that works, it returns MSWin32.