Error when attempting to save Notebook. Cause and solution?

Question

I am experiencing an error attempting to save a modified Notebook in Mathematica 10 under Windows.

The error I get is:

Could not access the directory X:\Docs\\Mathematica. You should check that directory's permissions.

Note the doubled \\. The correct path is X:\Docs\Mathematica.

NotebookDirectory[] returns the correct (escaped) path:

NotebookDirectory[]

"X:\\Docs\\Mathematica\\"

Correction: This is happening with multiple (all?) Notebooks in this path in the current session.

Has anyone else experienced this error? How can I determine its cause and seek a solution?

Answer 1

For the aid of anyone else who runs into this issue I seem to have figured out the compounding factors necessary to recreate this problem.

1. Create a Windows directory C:\foo\bar

2. Save arbitrary Notebook example.nb to this directory

3. Using the Option Inspector add to NotebookPath exactly: "C:\\foo\\bar"

4. Close and restart Mathematica

5. Create a new Notebook and run NotebookOpen["example.nb"]

6. Modify the content of example.nb and attempt to save it

The fix for the problem seems to be as simple as changing the NotebookPath entry to:

"C:\foo\bar"

Why the problem occurs I don't know. Clearly the escaped string \\ form is accepted as the Notebook is found by NotebookGet but apparently it isn't recognized during the save process. The problem also doesn't happen with a single level path such as "C:\\foo".