Powershell WebClient DownloadFile Exception Illegal Characters in Path

Question

I am trying to download zip files from an FTP site, based off retrieving a directory list to find file names.

Download Portion:

$folderPath='ftp://11.111.11.11/'
$target = "C:\Scripts\ps\ftpdl\"

Foreach ($file in ($array | where {$_ -like "data.zip"})) {

$Source = $folderPath+$file
$Path = $target+$file

#$Source = "ftp://11.111.11.11/data.zip"
#$Path = "C:\Scripts\ps\ftpdl\data.zip"

$source
Write-Verbose -Message $Source -verbose
$path
Write-Verbose -message $Path -verbose

$U = "User"
$P = "Pass"
$WebClient2 = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$WebClient2.Credentials = New-Object System.Net.Networkcredential($U, $P)
$WebClient2.DownloadFile( $source, $path )  
}

If I use the commented out and define the string it downloads correctly. But if I run it as shown I receive the exception error illegal characters in path. Interestingly enough, there is a difference between write-verbose and not.

Output when run as shown:

ftp://11.111.11.11/data.zip
data.zip
C:\Scripts\ps\ftpdl\data.zip
data.zip
Exception calling "DownloadFile" with "2" .........

Output when run with hard coded path & source

ftp://11.111.11.11/data.zip
VERBOSE: ftp://11.111.11.11/data.zip
C:\Scripts\ps\ftpdl\data.zip
VERBOSE: C:\Scripts\ps\ftpdl\data.zip    

And the file downloads nicely.

Answer 1

Well, of course once I post the question I figured it out. My $array contained `n and `r characters. I needed to find and replace both of them out.

$array=$array -replace "`n",""
$array=$array -replace "`r",""