Error “Encountered errors while reading in the specified configuration file” when you use FSRM dirquota command

My name is Himanshu Singh and in this blog I will talk about an issue seen on Windows Server 2003 64-bit servers running File Server Resource Manager (FSRM), where, when yourun a dirquota command to modify notifications using a configuration file, you may encounter error “Encountered errors while reading in the specified configuration file”.

The TechNet article https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754836(WS.10).aspx explains the dirquota command and its syntax in detail.

Now, let meexplain the issue, by taking an example:

Consider that you have an existing 85% quota threshold notification on the “MyStorage" directory in FSRM, which you would like to modify, and your modified configuration file looks like below:

Notification=m

To=someone@microsoft.com

Subject=[Quota Threshold]% share directory quota threshold exceeded

Message=The [Quota Path] share directory has reached [Quota Used Percent]% ([Quota Used MB] MBs) of the current [Quota Limit MB] MB quota limit. There are [Quota Free MB] MBs of free space remaining.

To make changes to an existing configuration using command line, you should run the dirquota quota modify command and specify the above configuration file, let’s call it "FSRMConfig.txt". The exact command is as below:

dirquota quota modify /Path:S:\MyStorage /modify-notification:85,m,c:\FSRMConfig.txt

If the above command is run on a Windows Server 2003 SP2 64-bit, you may get below error message:

"Encountered errors while reading in the specified configuration file: c:\FSRMConfig.txt"

This happens if the configuration text file is saved in ANSI format. In order to get the above command to work, re-create the configuration file and save it in UNICODE (UTF-16) format. Here is a MSDN article which describes UNICODE in detail:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd374081(v=vs.85).aspx

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688114

To save the file in UNICODE, you can either create a new file and save it in UNICODE or select File -> Save As option for the same file and in the save as dialog box, change the encoding to UNICODE, to save it in UNICODE format, see the screen-shot below:

After I saved the file as UNICODE the command worked and successfully modified the quota entry.

Hopefully, this would help you resolve your issue, in case you happen to run into it.

Himanshu Singh
Support EngineerMicrosoft Enterprise Platforms Support