How to copy files from network shared folder to local disk in Python/Ubuntu

Question

I have network folder which is mounted in Ubuntu and I can list all the files from but I am trying to copy it to a target folder and it throws error file not found. Below is the code:

import sys
import os
import shutil

SHARED_FOLDER = '/home/john/mnt'

TARGET_FOLDER = "/home/john/Desktop/"

for img in os.listdir(SHARED_FOLDER):
    print(img)
    shutil.copy(os.path.join(SHARED_FOLDER, img), TARGET_FOLDER)

Error:

2023-04-24_14:37:10_68.png
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 13, in <module>
    shutil.copy(os.path.join(SHARED_FOLDER, img), TARGET_FOLDER)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/shutil.py", line 245, in copy
    copyfile(src, dst, follow_symlinks=follow_symlinks)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/shutil.py", line 120, in copyfile
    with open(src, 'rb') as fsrc:
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/john/mnt/2023-04-24_14:37:10_68.png'

I can clearly see files are present in the shared folder but they are not being copied to target folder. This question is similar to How to copy a file from a network share to local disk with variables?

What am I doing wrong?

Have you tried to do this manually once and see if it works? ```cp /home/john/mnt/2023-04-24_14:37:10_68.png /home/john/Desktop/``` — Grimlock, Apr 24 '23 at 21:07
@Grimlock Okay it doesnt work with cp. Not sure whats the issue, any idea? — S Andrew, Apr 24 '23 at 21:11
Random guess, does the filenames have any weird characters, spaces etc? — Grimlock, Apr 24 '23 at 21:14
@Grimlock This is the filename `2023-04-24_14:37:10_68.png`. I just created a txt file in shared folder, and I was able to copy this text file but not the images. I think their some issue with files permission (not totally sure), — S Andrew, Apr 24 '23 at 21:18
You can do `ls -lrth` on the shared folder and compare the user and group of txt file and images. — Grimlock, Apr 24 '23 at 21:22
Thanks for your help. The problem is in the name of the file. I renamed one of the file and I was able to copy it. Thanks — S Andrew, Apr 24 '23 at 21:24
Added it as an answer, as it has resolved your problem. Please accept if okay, Thanks! — Grimlock, Apr 24 '23 at 21:27

Grimlock · Accepted Answer · 2023-04-24T21:32:43.323

Please check if it's an issue with your filenames, as it seems to have plenty of special characters. Try renaming it with a simpler name to test.

If it is related to the filename itself -- it might be because it contains special characters like underscores and colons, which might be causing the issue. You can try sanitizing the filenames before copying them. Here's a modified version of your code that replaces colons with underscores:

import sys
import os
import shutil

SHARED_FOLDER = '/home/john/mnt'
TARGET_FOLDER = "/home/john/Desktop/"

def sanitize_filename(filename):
    return filename.replace(':', '_')

for img in os.listdir(SHARED_FOLDER):
    print(img)
    sanitized_img = sanitize_filename(img)
    shutil.copy(os.path.join(SHARED_FOLDER, img), os.path.join(TARGET_FOLDER, sanitized_img))

This code first sanitizes the filename by replacing colons with underscores, and then proceeds to copy the file with the sanitized filename. If there are other special characters causing issues, you can extend the sanitize_filename function to handle them.

How to copy files from network shared folder to local disk in Python/Ubuntu

1 Answers1