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If you can’t open PDF files from SharePoint Online or OneDrive due to errors “There was an error opening this document, Access denied”, or ” ‘There was an error opening this document, The path doesn’t exist”, continue reading below to fix the problem.
The Adobe Acrobat error “There was an error opening this document”, can occur for one of the following three (3) reasons:
- The PDF file is corrupted.
How to FIX: SharePoint & OneDrive error ‘There was an error opening this document, Access denied or Path doesn’t exist in PDF files.
Step 1. Verify that the PDF file isn’t corrupted.
First of all, make sure that the PDF file that you cannot open due to the error “There was an error opening this document” is not damaged or corrupted. To do that:
1. Right-click on the PDF file and download it on your computer.
2. Then check if you can open it. If yes, that means that the file is OK.
Step 2. Shorten Folder Names.
The usual cause of the mentioned error is the long path length of the folder or file. This means that if the number of characters in the name of the file and the names of all subfolders in a main folder exceeds 256, you will get the error “There was an error opening this document, The path does not exist”. So, proceed as follows:
1. Move or copy the file to the parent or the main folder and check if you can open it.
For example: If you receive the error while trying to open the file “Sales11.pdf” stored in the following location…
\DocumentsFolders1Folder2Folder3Folder4Folder5Sales11.pdf
…move or copy it to the one of the following locations and then try to open it again.
- \DocumentsFolders1Folder2Folder3Folder4Sales11.pdf
- \DocumentsFolders1Sales11.pdf
2. Now according the result, proceed as follows:
- If the file does not open even after moving it to a parent folder, proceed to step-3.
- If the file opens after moving it to a parent folder, then the error is caused due to long file path. To overcome this problem, you can either keep the file to a parent folder or to shorten the folders’ name.
Step 3. Remove Special or Invalid Characters.
If none of the above steps helped you to solve the problem, please check the folders and file names and rename them considering the following:
- SharePoint and OneDrive doesn’t support the following characters in file and folder names:
” * : < > ? / |
- Also, some organizations don’t yet support the characters “#” and “%” in folder & file names. If you’re a global admin or SharePoint admin in Microsoft 365, see Enabling # and % Support on the SharePoint blog to learn how to allow these characters.
- Additionally, these names aren’t allowed for files or folders: .lock, CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM0 – COM9, LPT0 – LPT9, _vti_, desktop.ini, any filename starting with ~$.
That’s it! What worked for you?
Let me know if this guide has helped you by leaving your comment about your experience. Please like and share this guide to help others.