Error "404 - File not found" clicking on link to open a file

Issue

A customer receives error "404 File not Found" when clicking to open a file that actually seems to exist in the server in a valid folder.

404notfound.png

Resolution

It is noticed that the file name has double spaces in it, while the customer had intended to create it using a single space. 

folder_names.png

The use of spaces should always be avoided in the file names, due to following reasons:

  • Spaces are hard to be seen and perceived as multiple ones, being missed sometimes in the URL construction, resulting in access errors.
  • Spaces are not supported in the context of URL standard encoding, so they are replaced by other code to become valid. 
  • Each web server handles the URL with spaces differently, depending on the specific settings used: they can be either converted to "%20" or "+". Both situations can generate mistakes while adding URLs to a web content.

As a best practice to making a URL more human readable and resistant to typing errors, convert the spaces into underscores ("_") in the file and folder names, e.g. instead of "Year 2018\New York Sales Report", use "Year_2018\New_York_Sales_Report".

Content Author: Hamid Waqas

 

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