peass-ng/PEASS-ng · error · ArgumentNullException

Value cannot be null. Parameter name: path

Error message

Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: path

What it means

EnableDisableEncryptionCore throws ArgumentNullException("path") when the path parameter is null, empty, or whitespace (Utils.IsNullOrWhiteSpace check). Directory.EnableEncryption / DisableEncryption need a concrete directory path to pass to EncryptionDisable, so an empty value is rejected immediately as a caller error.

Source

Thrown at winPEAS/winPEASexe/winPEAS/3rdParty/AlphaFS/Filesystem/Directory Class/Directory Core Methods/Directory.EnableDisableEncryptionCore.cs:49

      /// <summary>Enables/disables encryption of the specified directory and the files in it.
      ///   <para>This method only creates/modifies the file "Desktop.ini" in the root of <paramref name="path"/> and  enables/disables encryption by writing: "Disable=0" or "Disable=1".</para>
      ///   <para>This method does not affect encryption of files and subdirectories below the indicated directory.</para>
      /// </summary>
      /// <exception cref="ArgumentException"/>
      /// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException"/>
      /// <exception cref="DirectoryReadOnlyException"/>
      /// <exception cref="FileReadOnlyException"/>
      /// <exception cref="IOException"/>
      /// <exception cref="NotSupportedException"/>
      /// <exception cref="UnauthorizedAccessException"/>
      /// <param name="path">The name of the directory for which to enable encryption.</param>
      /// <param name="enable"><c>true</c> enabled encryption, <c>false</c> disables encryption.</param>
      /// <param name="pathFormat">Indicates the format of the path parameter(s).</param>
      [SecurityCritical]
      internal static void EnableDisableEncryptionCore(string path, bool enable, PathFormat pathFormat)
      {
         if (Utils.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(path))
            throw new ArgumentNullException("path");

         var pathLp = Path.GetExtendedLengthPathCore(null, path, pathFormat, GetFullPathOptions.RemoveTrailingDirectorySeparator | GetFullPathOptions.FullCheck);

         // EncryptionDisable()
         // 2013-01-13: MSDN does not confirm LongPath usage and no Unicode version of this function exists.

         var success = NativeMethods.EncryptionDisable(pathLp, !enable);

         var lastError = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error();
         if (!success)
            NativeError.ThrowException(lastError, true, pathLp);
      }
   }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 53fb989abc)

Solutions

1. Validate with string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace before calling and raise a meaningful domain error.
2. Supply a default/known directory when the configured value is missing.
3. Fix the source of the empty path (config load, env var, argument parsing).
4. Guard batch loops: skip entries whose resolved path is empty instead of passing them through.

Example fix

// before
Directory.EnableEncryption(folderPath, true); // folderPath may be ""
// after
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(folderPath))
    throw new ArgumentException("Encrypted folder path is not configured");
Directory.EnableEncryption(folderPath, true);

if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(path))
    throw new ArgumentException("Directory path is required for EFS operations", nameof(path));

bool HasPath(string p) => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(p);

try { Directory.EnableEncryption(path, enable); }
catch (ArgumentNullException ex) { logger.LogError(ex, "Encryption target path missing"); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Directory.EnableEncryption(path, true) or DisableEncryption(path, false) with null/string.Empty/whitespace path; upstream config or registry value missing; a Path.Combine result that came back null/empty because an argument was empty.

Common situations: EFS-related setup scripts where the folder setting was never configured; environment-specific config files missing a key; loop variables that are empty on the last iteration of a batch operation.

Related errors

• Value cannot be null. Parameter name: path
• The drive does not support NTFS encryption: [{0}]
• ERROR_FILE_READ_ONLY
• Function '{func}' in module {path} is imported from itself
• Variable '{var}' in module {path} is imported from itself

AI-assisted analysis of peass-ng/PEASS-ng@53fb989abc (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/60f79278e658dfed. Report an issue: GitHub.