OrchardCMS/OrchardCore · error · FileStoreException

Cannot delete directory

Error message

Cannot delete directory '{path}'.

What it means

Wrapping FileStoreException from the hierarchical-namespace (ADLS Gen2) branch of TryDeleteDirectoryAsync. Any unexpected exception while deleting a Data Lake directory (other than the handled 404) is rethrown with the directory path in the message and the original exception as InnerException.

Solutions

1. Inspect InnerException (RequestFailedException status) to identify the real cause.
2. Verify credentials/RBAC role on the storage account and container.
3. Check that the container and base prefix exist and the path is valid.
4. Add retry logic (Polly or Azure SDK Retry options) for transient 5xx/429 errors.

Example fix

// before
await _fileStore.TryDeleteDirectoryAsync(path);
// after
try
{
    await _fileStore.TryDeleteDirectoryAsync(path);
}
catch (FileStoreException ex)
{
    _logger.LogError(ex.InnerException, "Failed to delete directory {Path}", path);
}

if (await _fileStore.DirectoryExistsAsync(path))
{
    await _fileStore.TryDeleteDirectoryAsync(path);
}

try
{
    await _fileStore.TryDeleteDirectoryAsync(path);
}
catch (FileStoreException ex)
{
    var azureError = ex.InnerException as RequestFailedException;
    _logger.LogError(ex, "Delete failed for {Path} (status {Status})", path, azureError?.Status);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling TryDeleteDirectoryAsync on an HNS-enabled account when the Data Lake directory client throws: authorization failures (403), throttling (429), transient network/RequestFailedException with non-404 status, or invalid path characters.

Common situations: Missing storage account keys/credentials or insufficient RBAC rights (Storage Blob Data Contributor); container deleted underneath the store; transient Azure outages; misconfigured base prefix producing invalid directory names.

Understand the failure class

Background: "failed to write file", "Could not save figure", "Error saving remote file" — file write failed: causes and fixes across languages and libraries — this error's family across 38 libraries.

Related errors

• Cannot delete the root directory.
• Cannot move file ' ' to ' '.
• The values for and must not be the same.
• Cannot copy file ' ' because it does not exist.
• Cannot copy file ' ' because a file already exists in the…

AI-assisted analysis of OrchardCMS/OrchardCore@4306c0717f (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d829a265f30c33ff. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/OrchardCore/OrchardCore.FileStorage.AzureBlob/BlobFileStore.cs:511

                if (!await directoryClient.ExistsAsync())
                {
                    return false;
                }

                await directoryClient.DeleteAsync(recursive: true);
                return true;
            }
            catch (FileStoreException)
            {
                throw;
            }
            catch (RequestFailedException ex) when (ex.Status == 404)
            {
                return false;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new FileStoreException($"Cannot delete directory '{path}'.", ex);
            }
        }

        try
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(path))
            {
                throw new FileStoreException("Cannot delete the root directory.");
            }

            var blobsWereDeleted = false;
            var prefix = this.Combine(_basePrefix, path);
            prefix = NormalizePrefix(prefix);

            var page = _blobContainer.GetBlobsAsync(BlobTraits.Metadata, BlobStates.None, prefix, CancellationToken.None);
            await foreach (var blob in page)
            {
                var blobReference = _blobContainer.GetBlobClient(blob.Name);

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