Run Command Working Directory Issues

Hi,

I've been trying to figure this one out for a few hours to no avail.

I set up a macro to check if a file is locked, leveraging the Run Command tool and a batch script.

Relative directory

This works beautifully when I run this macro from my machine, since I have write access to the working directory.

Local working directory

But when I try to run this same macro from the server (i.e. I call this macro from a workflow that is saved into our company gallery and is run from that server machine), the Run Command throws errors (generally "1"), which suggest that one or more of the files can't be created or read.

When I checked what the working directory is for the server machine, I see that it is a sub-folder under ProgramData/Alteryx which I apparently am unable to write to or read from.

Server working directory

So then I thought that I could specify a distinct network directory that I know the server box has access to. And while this works fine for the Write Source and Read Results sections, I am unable to use a UNC path in my command line argument.

So my question is: how can I set up this macro so that it can either a) always use a relative path that the machine running the workflow actually has write access to, or b) use a defined network path without running into the UNC issue?

Error Message

Macros

Run Command

Iterative Macro

Accepted answers

patrick_digan

@mix_pix and I were able to debug over a webex. When working with an unsaved workflow or on the server, the .bat was being run from an unexpected directory. There are at least 3 different ways to fix this

1) specify a working directory like %Engine.WorkflowDirectory%:

2) change the line in the .bat command to write out to a specified directory instead of relative results.txt:

Change this:

//"@echo off"+"
//"+
"2>nul ("+"
"
+"  >>"+'"'+[File]+'"'+" echo off"+"
"
+") && (echo file is not locked > results.txt) || (echo file is locked >results.txt)"


to this:
//"@echo off"+"
//"+
"2>nul ("+"
"
+"  >>"+'"'+[File]+'"'+" echo off"+"
"
+") && (echo file is not locked > %ENGINE.WorkflowDirectory%results.txt) || (echo file is locked >%ENGINE.WorkflowDirectory%results.txt)"

By modifying the results.txt from relative to our workflow directory

or 3) You could also change everything to write out to tempspace in an abundance of caution to make sure it all lines up:

Hope that helps anybody else! It was difficulty to comprehend because the initial setup worked just fine.

All comments

jdunkerley79

A trick I have used in the past to run a UNC path batch file is to use the following as the command arguments:

/C "PUSHD \\tableaunetapp.seagate.com\tableau_prod\SMC\Staging & FileLockCheck.bat"

I believe it should work on most versions of WIndows...

patrick_digan

@mix_pix Just my two cents, but try using the %Engine.TempFilePath% and calling the bat directly:

That seemed to resolve the issues on my side (and hopefully it's the same for you). I was able to figure out the issue by adding a pause statement to the bat and then not making it silent. Then I got this from the cmd prompt:

By having it write out the bat to a relative path, it's actually using the macro's relative path. So the bat file is called from my macro repository, which I have in the UNC form. Apparently the cmd prompt balks at that and then uses C:\Windows as the working directory. While I'm using the Engine.tempfilepath constant, you could also use Engine.ModuleDirectory constant.

Hope that helps!

mix_pix

I did try that (although my syntax was a bit different than yours, i.e. the & vs a \ prior to the file name), but the result is the same in either case: the workflow fails with the error message "The external program "c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe" returned an error code: 255 (Tool Id: 30)"

Your syntax works perfectly fine when I run the workflow on my local machine after I've saved it somewhere. But if I paste the same tools into a new workflow and don't save it (i.e. it is using the workflow constants as a temporary file location), I get the same 255 error.

So it would appear that these temporary workflow directories are preventing the bat file from being written and subsequently read in. Not sure how to get around that.

mix_pix

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the suggestion. The problem is that whenever I reference either of those constants (the TempFilePath or the WorkflowDirectory), I get errors - either a 1 or a 255, both of which seem to suggest that the run command can't locate one or more of the files.

I don't get any of these errors when I run the workflow from my local machine after I've saved it somewhere explicit. But if it's a new unsaved workflow, or a workflow that I save to the gallery, I can't get this run command to execute.

file not found.png

Quick Links

This months top contributors

atcodedog05 19458

Qiu 15867

binu_acs 15708

MarqueeCrew 13708

apathetichell 13703