No longer accessing mapped network drives using mapped drive letter, and other file-related issues

[Scott Adams]

Hi,
I have a problem that just cropped up recently and for no apparent reason.
Typically the data and do-files I work with are stored on a shared network drive. I map this drive to J: and then refer to it in do-files, and from the terminal.
Stata recently started giving a "file not found" error when I try to open a file with -use- and cannot find the J: drive with -cd-
However if I use the explicit network path, i.e., "\\server\drive\..." then it works OK.

An interesting quirk of this problem is that if I open a do-file using the mapped drive pathway, the do-file appears to open but is blank. However opening it with the explicit network path works fine.

At the same time, Stata stopped being able to open any file (from any location) by drag-and-drop into the Stata window.

Of course I can live with programming explicit network paths, and changing mapped drive paths, but it is weird.

If anyone is having similar issues or has had them and solved, would be great to hear. My IT department did not have a solution. (All other programs work fine with J.
Thanks,
Scott

[Dave Doody]

This is happening for me on a new installation of Stata/SE 16. Operating system is Windows 10 Enterprise. Stata is installed on my local C: drive, but my shortcut is set for it to open in my H: drive and run a profile.do to set some parameters. I then use a variety of mapped drives for both ODBC links and many existing programs, which I'd rather not have to rewrite to specify full network path names. Anyone have a solution to this?

Thanks,
Dave

[Scott Adams]

Hi,
I am now having a more severe version of this problem with Stata 17.0.
I cannot change to a mapped drive at all. I get an error, "unable to change to J:" (J: is mapped to a network drive in Windows 10 and works just fine).

This is very inconvenient and breaks a lot of old do-files when paths fail to load or save a data file.

It also means that -shell- never works, as it only returns a "UNC paths not supported" error. This is a problem as well, because I use shell to download data from an API with curl.exe.

If I open directly in a mapped drive, for example, by double clicking a do-file, Stata opens briefly and then immediately closes.

Stata 17.0/SE
Windows 10.0.19042 (Enterprise)

Please let me know if anyone has solved the problem of why Stata is no longer working with mapped drives (since about v 15) in Windows 10, at least sometimes, or if there is a work-around.

Scott