curl: (26) couldn't open file

Question

I am getting this error, when I am trying to call a box api through curl.

curl: (26) couldn't open file

Can't find why! I am calling this api with a correct file name-

curl https://upload.view-api.box.com/1/documents \
-H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-type: multipart/form-data" \
-F file=@A_correct_file_name

I have seen all the three already asked questions but 2 of them are unanswered and one is specific to facebook.

cURL error 26 couldn't open file

Fatal error: Uncaught CurlException: 26: couldn't open file "" thrown in

Getting Fatal Error Uncaught CurlException: 26: couldn't open file

@Shubham I have done this **'chmod 777 .'** in the directory which contains the file. Isn't that sufficient? — halkujabra, May 19 '14 at 05:41

score 27 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

27

I was having a similar problem after changing to PHP 5 (I was using the @ upload method and it was deprecated, so I had to start using CURLFile), and the solution to my problem was found in this stack.

Solution: curl upload won't work with relative paths, use the full path instead

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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1

answered Feb 23 '15 at 15:11

Guilherme Salomé

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score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered May 19 '14 at 06:13

19

Sorry guys! My bad. I had not included extension of the file in the file name. After including it, it worked. I am answering this in case someone does the same mistake in future.

answered May 19 '14 at 06:13

halkujabra

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1

upvoted because this helped me discover that I had munged the filename. – vlasits Apr 20 '15 at 16:45

Edmund Lee · Answer 3 · 2020-01-31T17:24:02.773

9

For my case, using relative path didn't work. But changing it to a absolute path fixes it.

This failed

curl -i -X POST -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
    -F "file=@~/Downloads/xxx.csv" http://localhost:6708/upload

This worked

curl -i -X POST -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
    -F "file=@/Users/myself/Downloads/xxx.csv" http://localhost:6708/upload

edited Jan 31 '20 at 17:24

answered Nov 20 '19 at 23:50

Edmund Lee

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Really weird, but Inside a Dockerfile works for me if I run docker locally but it doesn't work when it run in Azure DevOps. I fix it using absolute path instead of relative. – JuanluElGuerre Dec 05 '22 at 19:32

score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 19 '16 at 17:59

7

I was having this problem this morning but I solved with this

fileUpload=@\"file, with comma .txt\"

So you have to put some double quotes around the file name if you have commas in the file name ( \" )

edited Aug 19 '16 at 17:59

Kevin Kopf

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answered Aug 19 '16 at 15:34

Luis Cruz

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1
4

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 21 '16 at 18:27

I had a similar problem with relative paths like @Guilherme did too. I was running my bash script with:

bash test/script.sh

However, my file was in the same directory level as the bash script and not the test directory (where I was calling bash from), so the script could not find my file.

Solution for me:
1. cd into /test and run bash script.sh from there
2. Use absolute paths

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 15 '21 at 19:44

I am using PlateRecognizer.com to secure license plate information from pics that I have isolated from videos from my dashcam. I was having so many problems with the exact code. PlateRecognizer did not provide the correct information in their help section.

I work using my Windows 10 laptop. This code is what finally worked for me:

curl -F upload=@/”Users/Me/Desktop/Driver1.mp4” -F regions=us-az -H “Authorization: Token 4892e779f97d879df6453” https://api.platerecognizer.com/v1/plate-reader/

Make note of the double quote marks around the file path and name - not single quote marks.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 13 '19 at 11:41

Luis Cruz is correct: quotes are required around the filename, but I needed to use the 'file' keyword, not 'fileUpload', as is it shown in the question.

curl -X GET \
-H 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' \
-F file=@"/path/to/file.ext" \ 
'http://host:port/path/to/dir'

curl: (26) couldn't open file

7 Answers7

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