FilePathResult with network path throws COMException (The handle is invalid)

Question

I am using the FilePathResult like so:

return new FilePathResult(path, "text/xml");

My path is a path elsewhere on our network. This results in a server error. When I check the event log on the server I can see this error entry:

TransmitFile failed. File Name: \\our\path\to\the\file\filename.dfxp, HRESULT: 0x80070005

At the same time a warning is logged in the event viewer as well:

Event code: 3005 
Event message: An unhandled exception has occurred. 
Event time: 5/30/2013 4:05:03 PM 
Event time (UTC): 5/30/2013 9:05:03 PM 
Event ID: d77e5b799b87455f9f4daa7367f1bad2 
Event sequence: 33 
Event occurrence: 1 
Event detail code: 0 

Application information: 
    Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/3/ROOT-1-130144212630349792 
    Trust level: Full 
    Application Virtual Path: / 
    Application Path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\my.site.folder\ 
    Machine name: MyMachine

Process information: 
    Process ID: 3408 
    Process name: w3wp.exe 
    Account name: IIS APPPOOL\my.site.name

Exception information: 
    Exception type: COMException 
    Exception message: The handle is invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070006 (E_HANDLE))



Request information: 
    Request URL: http://my.site.com/Download/fca4fd06-d942-4ee8-8fe3-7ec7aa26938f 
    Request path: /Download/fca4fd06-d942-4ee8-8fe3-7ec7aa26938f 
    User host address: 10.0.70.17 
    User: my@user.com
    Is authenticated: True 
    Authentication Type: Forms 
    Thread account name: OURDOMAIN\SA-ACCOUNT

Thread information: 
    Thread ID: 14 
    Thread account name: OURDOMAIN\SA-ACCOUNT
    Is impersonating: False 
    Stack trace:

My service account that the application is running under has read access to the folder location. I didn't find this problem mentioned elsewhere in the ASP.NET MVC world so I thought I would ask here.

Answer 1

It may be too early to tell, however, it seems as though changing from a FilePathResult to a FileContentResult has fixed the problem.

var fileBytes = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(fileInfo.FullName);
return new FileContentResult(fileBytes, "text/xml")

I'm not sure what FilePathResult ends up doing internally, but, reading the file with ReadAllBytes seems to avoid the issue.