AlistGo/alist · error

Path: '{path}' is a directory

Error message

Path: '{path}' is a directory

What it means

Returned by getStream() in the gowebdav CLI when the local path passed to PUT points at a directory. The function stats the argument to open a file stream for upload; a directory cannot be streamed as a single body, so it fails with an os.PathError wrapping this message.

Source

Thrown at pkg/gowebdav/cmd/gowebdav/main.go:249

	}
	defer f.Close()

	_, err = f.Write(bytes)
	return err
}

func getStream(pathOrString string) (io.ReadCloser, error) {

	fi, err := os.Stat(pathOrString)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	if fi.IsDir() {
		return nil, &os.PathError{
			Op:   "Open",
			Path: pathOrString,
			Err:  errors.New("Path: '" + pathOrString + "' is a directory"),
		}
	}

	f, err := os.Open(pathOrString)
	if err == nil {
		return f, nil
	}

	return nil, &os.PathError{
		Op:   "Open",
		Path: pathOrString,
		Err:  err,
	}
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 843d9dc814)

Solutions

1. Point the PUT argument at a regular file, not a directory
2. To upload a whole directory, loop over its files in shell and PUT each one individually
3. Create the remote directory first with MKDIR when mirroring structure

Example fix

# before
$ gowebdav PUT ./photos https://dav.example.com/photos

# after
$ find ./photos -type f -exec gowebdav PUT {} /photos/{} \;

fi, err := os.Stat(localPath)
if err != nil { return err }
if fi.IsDir() {
	return fmt.Errorf("%s is a directory; PUT takes a single file", localPath)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking `gowebdav PUT /some/local/dir remote/path` where the second-to-last argument is an existing directory rather than a regular file.

Common situations: Trying to upload a folder instead of a file (WebDAV PUT uploads one file; there is no recursive PUT in this CLI), shell glob collapsing incorrectly, or forgetting to name the target file.

Related errors

• Unsupported method: {method}
• 123 offline download cannot target the root directory, pick
• file_id is required
• same-name dirs cannot be Put
• invalid hash

AI-assisted analysis of AlistGo/alist@843d9dc814 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e446b8ab371188a2. Report an issue: GitHub.