Error: Filename, Directoryname or volumelbel syntax is incorrect(123)

[umarwadia]

Hello,

I get the above error after running a quick scan with avast free 7.0.1456 for some of my local documents sub directories. Since there is nothing wrong operationally with the computer (strange behavior etc.) is this a false alarm?

Thanks,


Manish

[Theo Peterbroers]

Hi Manish,

My system has parallel installations of Windows xp and ubuntu linux. When avast scans my ext3 formatted ubuntu disk, I get the same error message. Apparently the windows version of avast dislikes the colon in some filenames.

Could you please post a screenshot of the scanresults, so that we might gain some insight what is happening?

Best regards,

[igor]

I don't think those two things are related.

umarwadia: A screenshot would indeed help, but my guess is (I've seen it many times already) that your Windows installation is "corrupted" in the sense that the usual filesystem links point to a wrong (possibly non-existing) partition. It doesn't really affect the OS functionality, but if any program tries to use the links, it lands somewhere else.
If that's indeed the case, the "solution" for avast! would be to go to the settings of the particular scan, switch to the Sensitivity page and uncheck the option "Follow links during scan" - then avast! won't try to resolve the links and scan their targets.

Kwartet!: Can you also post some screenshots? It doesn't have to be avast's code that dislikes the colons, it might be the OS API calls themselves. I'm not 100% sure though - if we're talking about colon in particular, it might somehow interact with NTFS-stream processing functions... but as far as I remember the enumeration code, it shouldn't really happen.

[Theo Peterbroers]

Hi Igor,

Screenshot coming in....

This morning, I sent the same screenshot to virus@avast.com (subject: Valid pathname on ext3 formatted disk not a virus). Since Windows xp does not know how to read an ext3 formatted disk, I installed a driver "Ext2 IFS for Windows" (http://www.fs-driver.org/). It's been sitting there for some years now, the version of the "IFS Mount Manager" is 1.0.0.2 from 2008 or 2009. I will check to see if a newer version has been published.

Best regards,

[igor]

Well, I would ask - if you attempt to open one of the reported files from some ordinary Windows tool (e.g. Notepad), or view it in a tool like FAR or Total Commander... what happens?

[Theo Peterbroers]

From Windows Explorer, I can see them but cannot copy  them. Message: "Cannot read data from source file or source disk". A file from the same directory that does not have a colon in its name can simply be viewed and copied.

Would those colons indicate a special filetype, like uhmm, what was it called, symbolic link? My Linux knowledge is somewhat rusty/nonexistent.

Same kind of result from free commander and master commander.

[igor]

I'm not a Linux expert either, but I believe you can have any characters in the filenames there (without them having any special meaning).
This is not true for Windows: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx#naming_conventions

According to the behavior you describe, I believe what I originally suspected is the case here. It's not the programs themselves (avast, Explorer, file manager) that would have problems with the colon in the filename - they don't really care, they just pass the filename to the Windows "open file" API function. However, the operating system itself is unable to open those files because the filenames don't conform to the allowed format (and it's not limited to the colon character - other characters mentioned in the naming convention would behave the same).
So, I'm not sure if there's any solution for this... the programs see the files, because the file/folder enumeration API functions return their names, but they are unable to open them, because the file access API functions are unable to deal with the name later. Simply said, EFS filesystem is not compatible with Windows - the EFS mount hack somehow passes the filesystem data into Windows, but it's unable to change the hardcoded behavior related to the incompatible filenames.

If I had that setup on my computer, I could try some experiments to see if there is any other way to open the file - but first, I'm somehow skeptical about the outcome, and second... it's really of quite a low priority.

[Theo Peterbroers]

Agreed, Igor.

If some ext3 files cannot be opened, then they don't really pose a threat to Windows.